Chrysostome even when he differs from others and in this Article he consents with him and the rest now reckoned when God made Adam and adorned him with reason he gave him one commandement that he might exercise his reason he being deceived broke the commandement and was exposed to the sentence of death and so he begat Cain and Seth and others but all these as being begotten of him had a mortal nature This kind of Nature wants many things meat and drink and cloaths and dwelling and divers arts the use of these things often-times provokes to excess and the excess begets sin Therefore the divine Apostle saith that when Adam had sinned and was made mortal for his sin both came to his stock that is death and sin for death came upon all inasmuch as all men have sinned For every man suffers the decree of death not for the sin of the first man but for his own Much more to the same purpose he hath upon the same Chapter but this is enough to all the purposes of this Question Now if any man thinks that though these give testimony in behalf of my explication of this Article yet that it were easie to bring very many more to the contrary I answer and profess ingenuously that I know of none till about S. Austin's time for that the first Ages taught the doctrine of Original sin I do no ways doubt but affirm it all the way but that it is a sin improperly that is a stain and a reproach rather than a sin that is the effect of one sin and the cause of many that it brought in sickness and death mortality and passions that it made us naked of those supernatural aides that Adam had and so more lyable to the temptations of the Devil this is all I find in antiquity and sufficient for the explication of this question which the more simply it is handled the more true and reasonable it is But that I may use the words of Solomon according to the Vulgar translation Hoc inveni quod fecerit Deus hominem rectum ipse se infinitis miscuerit quaestionibus God made man upright and he hath made himself more deformed than he is by mingling with innumerable questions 23. I think I have said enough to vindicate my sentence from Novelty and though that also be sufficient to quit me from singularity yet I have something more to add as to that particular and that is that it is very hard for a man to be singular in this Article if he would For first in the Primitive Church when Valentinus and Marcion Tatianus Julius Cassianus and the Encratites condemned marriage upon this account because it produces that only which is impure many good men and right believers did to justifie marriages undervalue the matter of Original sin this begat new questions in the manner of speaking and at last real differences were entertained and the Pelagian Heresie grew up upon this stock But they changed their Propositions so often that it was hard to tell what was the Heresie But the first draught of it was so rude so confused and so unreasonable that when any of the followers of it spake more warily and more learnedly yet by this time the name Pelagian was of so ill a sound that they would not be believed if they spake well nor trusted in their very recantations nor understood in their explications but cryed out against in all things right or wrong and in the fierce prosecution of this S. Austin and his followers Fulgentiâ—â— Prosper and others did excedere in dogmate pati aliquid humanum S. Austin called them all Pelagians who were of the middle opinion concerning infants and yet many Catholicks both before and since his time do profess it The Augustan confession calls them Pelagians who say that concupiscence is only the effect of Adam's sin and yet all the Roman Churches say it confidently and every man that is angry in this Question calls his Enemy Pelagian if he be not a Stoic or a Manichee a Valentinian or an Encratite But the Pelagians say so many things in their Controversie that like them that â—â—lk much they must needs say some things well though very many things amiss but if every thing which was said against S. Austin in these controversies be Pelagianism then all Antiquity were Pelagians and himself besides For he before his disputes in these Questions said much against what he said after as every learned man knows But yet it is certain that even after the Pelagian Heresie was conquered there were many good men who because they from every part take the good and leave the poyson were called Pelagians by them that were angry at them for being of another opinion in some of their Questions Cassian was a good and holy man and became the great rule of Monastines yet because he spake reason in his exhortations to Piety and justified God and blamed man he is called Pelagian and the Epistle ad Demetriadem and the little commentary on S. Paul's Epistles were read and commended highly by all men so long as they were supposed to be S. Hierom's but when some fancied that Faustus was the author they suspect the writings for the Man's sake and how-ever S. Austin was triumphant in the main Article against those Hereticks and there was great reason he should yet that he took in too much and confuted more than he should appears in this that though the World followed him in the condemnation of Pelagianisme yet the World left him in many things which he was pleased to call Pelagianisme And therefore when Arch-Bishop Bradwardin wrote his Books de causâ Dei against the liberty of will and for the fiercer way of absolute decrees he complains in his Preface that the whole World was against him and gone after Pelagius in causa liberi arbitrii Not that they really were made so but that it is an usual thing to affright men from their reasons by Names and words and to confute an argument by slandering him that uses it Now this is it that I and all men else ought to be troubled at if my doctrine be accused of singularity I cannot acquit my self of the charge but by running into a greater For if I say that one Proposition is taught by all the Roman Schools and therefore I am not singular in it They reply it is true but then it is Popery which you defend If I tell that the Lutherans defend another part of it then the Calvinists hate it therefore because their enemies avow it Either it is Popery or Pelagianisme you are an Arminian or a Socinian And either you must say that which no body sayes and then you are singular or if you do say as others say you shall feel the reproach of the party that you own which is also disowned by all but it self That therefore which I shall choose to say is this that the doctrine of Original sin as
it before a sinner can be tied to it For to have displeased God is a great evil but what is it to me if it will bring no evil to me It is a Metaphysical and a Moral evil but unless it be also naturally and sensibly so it is not the object of a natural and proper grief It follows therefore that the state of a repenting person must have in it some more causes of sorrow than are usually taught or else in vain can they be called upon to weep and mourn for their sins Well may they wring their faces and their hands and put on black those disguises of passion and curtains of joy those ceremonies and shadows of rich widows and richer heirs by which they decently hide their secret smiles well may they rend their garments but upon this account they can never rend their hearts 7. For the stating of this Article it is considerable that there are several parts or periods of sorrow which are effected by several principles In the beginning of our repentance sometimes we feel cause enough to grieve For God smites many into repentance either a sharp sickness does awaken us or a calamity upon our house or the death of our dearest relative and they that find sin so heavily incumbent and to press their persons or fortunes with feet of lead will feel cause enough and need not to be disputed into a penitential sorrow They feel Gods anger and the evil effects of sin and that it brings sorrow and then the sorrow is justly great because we have done that evil which brings so sad a judgment 8. And in the same proportion there is always a natural cause of sorrow where there is a real cause of fear and so it is ever in the beginning of repentance and for ought we know it is for ever so and albeit the causes of fear lessen as the repentance does proceed yet it will never go quite off till hope it self be gone and passed into charity or at least into a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into that fulness of confidence which is given to few as the reward of a lasting and conspicuous holiness And the reason is plain For though it be certain in religion that whoever repents shall be pardoned yet it is a long time before any man hath repented worthily and it is as uncertain in what manner and in what measures and in what time God will give us pardon It is as easie to tell the very day in which a man first comes to the use of reason as to tell the very time in which we are accepted to final pardon The progressions of one being as divisible as the other and less discernible For reason gives many fair indications of it self whereas God keeps the secrets of this mercy in his sanctuary and draws not the curtain till the day of death or judgment 9. Add to this that our very repentances have many allays and imperfections and so hath our pardon And every one that sins hath so displeased God that he is become the subject of the Divine anger Death is the wages what death God please and therefore what evil soever God will inflict or his mortality can suffer and he that knows this hath cause to fear and he that fears hath cause to be grieved that he is fallen from that state of divine favour in which he stood secured with the guards of Angels and covered with Heaven it self as with a shield in which he was beloved of God and heir of all his glories 10. But they that describe repentance in short and obscure characters and make repentance and pardon to be the children of a minute and born and grown up quickly as a fly or a mushrome with the dew of a night or the tears of a morning making the labours of the one and the want of the other to expire sooner than the pleasures of a transient sin are so insensible of the sting of sin that indeed upon their grounds it will be impossible to have a real godly sorrow For though they have done evil yet by this doctrine they feel none and there is nothing remains as a cause of grief unless they will be sorrowful for that they have been pleased formerly and are now secured nothing remains before them or behind but the pleasure that they had and the present confidence and impunity and that 's no good instrument of sorrow Securitas delicti etiam libido est ejus Sin takes occasion by the law it self if there be no penalty annexed 11. But the first in-let of a godly sorrow which is the beginning of repentance is upon the stock of their present danger and state of evil into which by their sin they are fallen viz. when their guilt is manifest they see that they are become sons of death expos'd to the wrath of a provoked Deity whose anger will express it self when and how it please and for ought the man knows it may be the greatest and it may be intolerable and though his danger is imminent and certain yet his pardon is a great way off it may be Yea it may be No it must be hop'd for but it may be missed for it is upon conditions and they are or will seem very hard Sed ut valeas multa dolenda feres So that in the summ of affairs however that the greatest sinner and the smallest penitent are very apt and are taught by strange doctrines to flatter themselves into confidence and presumption yet he will have reason to mourn and weep when he shall consider that he is in so sad a condition that because his life is uncertain it is also uncertain whether or no he shall not be condemned to an eternal prison of flames so that every sinner hath the same reason to be sorrowful as he hath who from a great state of blessings and confidence is fallen into great fears and great dangers and a certain guilt and liableness of losing all he hath and suffering all that is insufferable They who state repentance otherwise cannot make it reasonable that a penitent should shed a tear And therefore it is no wonder that we so easily observe a great dulness and indifferency so many dry eyes and merry hearts in persons that pretend repentance it cannot more reasonably be attributed to any cause than to those trifling and easie propositions of men that destroy the causes of sorrow by lessening and taking off the opinion of danger But now that they are observed and reproved I hope the evil will be lessened But to proceed 12. II. Having now stated the reasonableness and causes of penitential sorrow the next inquity is into the nature and constitution of that sorrow For it is to be observed that penitential sorrow is not seated in the affections directly but in the understanding and is rather Odium than Dolor it is hatred of sin and detestation of it a nolition a renouncing and disclaiming it whose expression is a resolution never
to signifie in an apt and a disposed nature what kind of apprehensions and trouble there is within For weeping upon the presence of secular troubles is more ready and easie because it is an effect symbolical and of the same nature with its proper cause But when there is a spiritual cause although its proper effect may be greater and more effective of better purposes yet unless by the intermixture of some material and natural cause it be more apportion'd to a material and natural product it is not to be charged with it or expected from it Sin is a spiritual evil and tears is the sign of a natural or physical sorrow Smart and sickness and labour are natural or physical evils and hatred and nolition is a spiritual or intellectual effect Now as every labour and every smart is not to be hated or rejected but sometimes chosen by the understanding when it is mingled with a good that pleases the understanding and is eligible upon the accounts of reason So neither can every sin which is the intellectual evil be productive of tears or sensitive sorrow unless it be mingled with something which the sense and affections that is which the lower man hates and which will properly afflict him such as are fear or pain or danger or disgrace or loss The sensitive sorrow therefore which is usually seen in new penitents is upon the account of those horrible apprehensions which are declared in holy Scriptures to be the consequent of sins but if we shall so preach Repentance as to warrant a freedom and a perfect escape instantly from all significations of the wrath of God and all dangers for the future upon the past and present account I know not upon what reckoning he that truly leaves his sin can be commanded to be sorrowful and if he were commanded how he can possibly obey 18. But when repentance hath had its growth and progression and is increased into a habit of piety sorrow and sensitive trouble may come in upon another account for great and permanent changes of the mind make great impressions upon the lower man When we love an object intensely our very body receives comfort in the presence of it and there are friendly Spirits which have a natural kindness and cognation to each other and refresh one another passing from eye to eye from friend to friend and the Prophet David felt it in the matter of Religion My flesh and my heart rejoyce in the living Lord. For if a grief of mind is a consumption of the flesh and a chearful spirit is a conservatory of health it is certain that every great impression that is made upon the mind and dwells there hath its effect upon the body and the lower affections And therefore all those excellent penitents who consider the baseness of sin * their own danger though now past in some degrees * the offence of God * the secret counsels of his Mercy * his various manners of dispensing them * the fearful judgments which God unexpectedly sends upon some men * the dangers of our own confidence * the weakness of our Repentance * the remains of our sin * the aptnesses and combustible nature of our Concupiscence * the presence of temptation and the perils of relapsing * the evil state of things which our former sins leave us in * our difficulty in obeying and our longings to return to Egypt * and the fearful anger of God which will with greater fierceness descend if we chance to fall back Those penitents I say who consider these things frequently and prudently will find their whole man so wrought upon that every faculty shall have an enmity against sin and therefore even the affections of the lower man must in their way contribute to its mortification and that is by a real and effective sorrow 19. But in this whole affair the whole matter of question will be in the manner of operation or signification of the dislike For the duty is done if the sin be accounted an enemy that is whether the dislike be only in the intellectual and rational appetite or also in the sensitive For although men use so to speak and distinguish superior from inferior appetites yet it will be hard in nature to find any real distinct faculties in which those passions are subjected and from which they have emanation The intellectual desire and the sensual desire are both founded in the same faculty they are not distinguished by their subjects but by their objects only they are but several motions of the will to or from several objects When a man desires that which is most reasonable and perfective or consonant to the understanding that we call an intellectual or rational appetite but if he desires a thing that will do him hurt in his soul or to his best interest and yet he desires it because it pleases him this is fit to be called a sensitive appetite because the object is sensitive and it is chosen for a sensual reason But it is rather appetitio than appetitus that is an act rather than a principle of action The case is plainer if we take two objects of several interests both of which are proportion'd to the understanding S. Anthony in the desart and S. Bernard in the Pulpit were tempted by the spirit of pride they resisted and overcame it because pride was unreasonable and foolish as to themselves and displeasing to God If they had listned to the whispers of that spirit it had been upon the accounts of pleasure because pride is that deliciousness of spirit which entertains a vain man making him to delight in his own images and reflexions and therefore is a work of the flesh but yet plainly founded in the understanding And therefore here it is plain that when the flesh and the spirit fight it is not a fight between two faculties of the soul but a contest in the soul concerning the election of two objects It is no otherwise in this than in every deliberation when arguments from several interests contest each other Every passion of the man is nothing else but a proper manner of being affected with an object and consequently a tendency to or an aversion from it that is a willing or a nilling of it which willing and nilling when they produce several permanent impressions upon the mind and body receive the names of divers passions The object it self first striking the fancy or lower apprehensions by its proper energy makes the first passion or tendency to the will that is the inclination or first concupiscence but when the will upon that impression is set on work and chuses the sensual object that makes the abiding passion the quality As if the object be displeasing and yet not present it effects fear or hatred if good and not present it is called desire but all these diversifications are meerly natural effects as to be warm is before the fire and cannot be in our choice directly and immediately That
which is the prime and proper action of the will that only is subject to a command that is to chuse or refuse the sin The passion that is the proper effect or impress upon the fancy or body that is natural and is determin'd to the particular by the mixture of something natural with the act of the will as if an apprehension of future evils be mingled with the refusing sin that is if it be the cause of it then fear is the passion that is effected by it If the feeling some evil be the cause of the nolition then sorrow is the effect and fear also may produce sorrow So that the passion that is the natural impress upon the man cannot be the effect of a Commandment but the principle of that passion is we are commanded to refuse sin to eschew evil that 's the word of the Scripture but because we usually do feel the evils of sin and we have reason to fear worse and sorrow is the natural effect of such a feeling and such a fear therefore the Scripture calling us to repentance that is a new life a dying unto sin and a living unto righteousness expresses it by sorrow and mourning and weeping but these are not the duty but the expressions or the instruments of that which is a duty So that if any man who hates sin and leaves it cannot yet find the sharpness of such a sorrow as he feels in other sad accidents there can nothing be said to it but that the duty it self is not clothed with those circumstances which are apt to produce that passion it is not an eschewing of sin upon considerations of a present or a feared trouble but upon some other principle or that the consideration is not deep and pressing or that the person is of an unapt disposition to those sensible effects The Italian and his wife who by chance espied a Serpent under the shade of their Vines were both equal haters of the little beast but the wise only cried out and the man kill'd it but with as great a regret and horror at the sight of it as his wife though he did not so express it But when a little after they espied a Lizard and she cried again he told her That he perceiv'd her trouble was not always deriv'd from reasonable apprehensions and that what could spring only from images of things and fancies of persons was not considerable by a just value This is the case of our sorrowing Some express it by tears some by penances and corporal inflictions some by more effective and material mortifications of it but he that kills it is the greatest enemy But those persons who can be sorrowful and violently mov'd for a trifling interest and upon the arrests of fancy if they find these easie meltings and sensitive afflictions upon the accounts of their sins are not to please themselves at all unless when they have cried out they also kill the Serpent 20. I cannot therefore at all suspect that mans repentance who hates sin and chuses righteousness and walks in it though he do not weep or feel the troubles of a mother mourning over the hearse of her only son but yet such a sensitive grief is of great use to these purposes I. If it do not proceed from the present sense of the Divine judgment yet it supplies that and feels an evil from its own apprehension which is not yet felt from the Divine infliction II. It prevents Gods anger by being a punishment of our selves a condemnation of the sinner and a taking vengeance of our selves for our having offended God And therefore it is consequently to this agreed on all hands that the greater the sorrow is the less necessity there is of any outward affliction Vt possit lachrymis aequare labores According to the old rule of the Penitentiaries Sitque modus culpae justae moderatio poenae Quae tanto levior quanto contritio major Which general measure of repentances as it is of use in the particular of which I am now discoursing so it effects this perswasion that external mortifications and austerities are not any part of original and essential duty but significations of the inward repentance unto men and suppletories of it before God that when we cannot feel the trouble of mind we may at least hate sin upon another account even upon the superinduc'd evils upon our bodies for all affliction is nothing but sorrow Gravis animi poena est quem post factum poenitet said Publius To repent is a grievous punishment and the old man in the Comedy calls it so Cur meam senectam hujus sollicito amentiâ Pro hujus ego ut peccatis supplicium sufferam Why do I grieve my old age for his madness that I should suffer punishment for his sins grieving was his punishment 3. This sensitive sorrow is very apt to extinguish sin it being of a symbolical nature to the design of God when he strikes a sinner for his amendment it makes sin to be uneasie to him and not only to be displeasing to his spirit but to his sense and consequently that it hath no port to enter any more 4. It is a great satisfaction to an inquisitive conscience to whom it is not sufficient that he does repent unless he be able to prove it by signs and proper indications 21. The summ is this No man can in any sence be said to be a true penitent unless he wishes he had never done the sin 2. But he that is told that his sin is presently pardon'd upon repentance that is upon leaving it and asking forgiveness and that the former pleasure shall not now hurt him he hath no reason to wish that he had never done it 3. But to make it reasonable to wish that the sin had never been done there must be the feeling or fear of some evil Conscia mens ut cuique sua est ita concipit intra Pectora pro meritis spémque metúmque suis. 4. According as is the nature of that evil fear'd or felt so is the passion effected of hatred or sorrow 5. Whatever the passion be it must be totally exclusive of all affection to sin and produce enmity and fighting against it until it be mortified 6. In the whole progression of this mortification it is more than probable that some degrees of sensitive trouble will come in at some angle or other 7. Though the duty of penitential sorrow it self be completed in nolitione peccati in the hating of sin and our selves for doing it yet the more penal that hate is the more it ministers to many excellent purposes of repentance 22. But because some persons do not feel this sensitive sorrow they begin to suspect their repentance and therefore they are taught to supply this want by a reflex act that is to be sorrowful because they are not sorrowful This I must needs say is a fine device where it can be made to signifie something that is
that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdom and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to do this than by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theologie us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducement of a holy life and have endeavoured to do it so plainly that it may be useful to every man and so inoffensively that it may hurt no man I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withall excepting those of my infirmity and disability which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes but this only that in the Chapter of Original sin I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England whos 's ninth Article affirms that the natural propensity to evil and the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the spirit deserves the anger of God and damnation against which I so earnestly seem to dispute in the sixth Chapter of my Book To this I answer that it is one thing to say a thing in its own nature deserves damnation and another to say it is damnable to all those persons in whom it is subjected The thing it self that is our corrupted nature or our nature of corruption does leave us in the state of separation from God by being unable to bear us to Heaven imperfection of nature can never carry us to the perfections of glory and this I conceive to be all that our Church intends for that in the state of nature we can only fall short of Heaven and be condemn'd to a poena damni is the severest thing that any sober person owns and this I say that Nature alone cannot bring us to God without the regeneration of the Spirit and the grace of God we can never go to Heaven but because this Nature was not spoil'd by Infants but by persons of reason and we are all admitted to a new Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Adam presently after his fall that is even before we were born as much as we were to a participation of sin before we were born no man can perish actually for that because he is reconcil'd by this He that says every sin is damnable and deserves the anger of God says true but yet some persons that sin of mere infirmity are accounted by God in the rank of innocent persons So it is in this Article Concupiscence remains in the regenerate and yet concupiscence hath the nature of sin but it brings not condemnation These words explain the 〈◊〉 Original imperfection is such a thing as is even in the regenerate and it is of the nature of sin that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many but yet it is not daâ—â—ing because as it is subjected in unconsenting persons it loses its own natural venome and relation to guiltiness that is it may of it self in its abstracted nature be a sin and deserve Gods anger viz. in some persons in all them that consent to it but that which will always be in persons that shall never be damned that is in infants and regenerate shall 〈◊〉 damn them And this is the main of what I affirm And since the Church of England intended that Article against the Doctrine of the Pelagians I suppose I shall not be thought to recede from the spirit and sence of the Article though I use differing manners of expression because my way of explicating this question does most of all destroy the Pelagian Heresie since although I am desirous to acquit the dispensation of God and his Justice from my imputation or suspicion of wrong and am loth to put our sins upon the account of another yet I impute all our evils to the imperfections of our nature and the malice of our choice which does most of all demonstrate not only the necessity of Grace but also of Infant Baptism and then to accuse this Doctrine of Pelagianism or any newer name of Heresie will seem like impotency and weakness of spirit but there will be nothing of truth or learning in it And although this Article was penn'd according to the style of the Schools as they then did loâ—e to speak yet the hardest word in it is capable of such a sence as complies with the intendment of that whole sixth Chapter For though the Church of England professes her self fallible and consequently that all her truths may be peaceably improved yet I do think that she is not actually deceiv'd and also that divers eminently learned do consent in my sence of that Article However I am so truly zealous for her honour and peace that I wholly submit all that I say there or any where else to her most prudent judgment And though I may most easily be deceived yet I have given my reasons for what I say and desire to be tried by them not by prejudice and numbers and zeal and if any man resolves to understand the Article in any other sence than what I have now explicated all that I shall say is that it may be I cannot reconcile my Doctrine to his explication it is enough that it is consistent with the Article it self in its best understanding and compliance with the truth it self and the justification of God However he that explicates the Article and thinks it means as he says does all the honour he can to the Authority whose words if he does not understand yet the sanction
expiation of them they fancy and consequently give what allowance they list to those whom they please to mislead For in innumerable Cases of Conscience it is oftner inquired whether a thing be Venial or Mortal than whether it be lawful or not lawful and as Purgatory is to Hell so Venial is to Sin a thing which men fear not because the main stake they think to be secured for if they may have Heaven at last they care not what comes between And as many men of the Roman perswasion will rather chuse Purgatory than suffer here an inconsiderable penance or do those little services which themselves think will prevent it so they chuse venial sins and hug the pleasures of trifles warming themselves at phantastick fires and dancing in the light of the Glo-worms and they love them so well that rather than quit those little things they will suffer the intolerable pains of a temporary Hell for so they believe which is the testimony of a great evil and a mighty danger for it gives testimony that little sins can be beloved passionately and therefore can minister such a delight as is thought a price great enough to pay for the sufferance of temporal evils and Purgatory it self 3. But the evil is worse yet when it is reduc'd to practice For in the decision of very many questions the answer is It is a venial sin that is though it be a sin yet there is in it no danger of losing the favour of God by that but you may do it and you may do it again a thousand thousand times and all the venial sins of the world put together can never do what one mortal sin can that is make God to be your enemy So Bellarmine expresly affirms But because there are many Doctors who write Cases of Conscience and there is no measure to limit the parts of this distinction for that which is not at all cannot be measured the Doctors differ infinitely in their sentences some calling that Mortal which others call Venial as you may see in the little Summaries of Navar and Emanuel Sà the poor souls of the Laity and the vulgar Clergy who believe what is told them by the Authors or Confessors they chuse to follow must needs be in infinite danger and the whole body of Practical Divinity in which the life of Religion and of all our hopes depends shall be rendred dangerous and uncertain and their confidence shall betray them unto death 4. To bring relief to this state of evil and to establish aright the proper grounds and measures of Repentance I shall first account concerning the difference of sins and by what measures they are so differenc'd 2. That all sins are of their own nature punishable as God please even with the highest expressions of his anger 3. By what Repentance they are cur'd and pardon'd respectively SECT II. Of the difference of sins and their measures 5. I. SINS are not equal but greater or less in their principle as well as in their event It was one of the errors of Jovinian which he learned from the Schools of the Stoicks that all sins are alike grievous Nam dicunt esse pares res Furta latrociniis magnis parva minantur Falce recisuros simili se si sibi regnum Permittant homines For they supposed an absolute irresistible Fate to be the cause of all things and therefore what was equally necessary was equally culpable that is not at all and where men have no power of choice or which is all one that it be necessary that they chuse what they do there can be no such thing as Laws or sins against them To which they adding that all evils are indifferent and the event of things be it good or bad had no influence upon the felicity or infelicity of man they could neither be differenc'd by their cause nor by their effect the first being necessary and the latter indifferent * Against this I shall not need to oppose many Arguments for though this follows most certainly from their doctrine who teach an irresistible Decree of God to be the cause of all things and actions yet they that own the doctrine disavow the consequent and in that are good Christians but ill Logicians But the Article is sufficiently cleared by the words of our B. Lord in the case of Judas whose sin as Christ told to Pilate was the greater because he had not power over him but by special concession in the case of the servant that knows his Masters will and does it not in the several condemnations of the degrees and expressions of anger in the instances of Racha and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou vain man or Thou fool by this comparing some sins to gnats and some to Camels and in proportion to these there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Luke many stripes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. James a greater condemnation * Thus to rob a Church is a greater sin than to rob a Thief To strike a Father is a higher impiety than to resist a Tutor To oppress a Widow is clamorous and calls aloud for vengeance when a less repentance will vote down the whispering murmurs of a trifling injury done to a fortune that is not sensible of smaller diminutions Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idémque Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti Vt qui nocturnus Divûm sacra legerit He is a greater criminal that steals the Chalice from a Church than he that takes a few Coleworts or robs a garden of Cucumers But this distinction and difference is by something that is extrinsecal to the action the greatness of the mischief or the dignity of the person according to that Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur 6. II. But this when it is reduc'd to its proper cause is because such greater sins are complicated they are commonly two or three sins wrapt together as the unchastity of a Priest is uncleanness and scandal too Adultery is worse than Fornication because it is unchastity and injustice and by the fearful consequents of it is mischievous and uncharitable Et quas Euphrates quas mihi misit Orontes Me capiant Nolo furta pudica thori So Sacriledge is theft and impiety And Apicius killing himself when he suppos'd his estate would not maintain his luxury was not only a self-murtherer but a gluttonous person in his death Nil est Apici tibi gulosius factum So that the greatness of sins is in most instances by extension and accumulation that as he is a greater sinner who sins often in the same instance than he that sins seldom so is he who sins such sins as are complicated and intangled like the twinings of combining Serpents And this appears to be so because if we take single sins as uncleanness and theft no man can tell which is the greater sin neither
us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him * But now the sinner is more busie in his recovery more fearful of relapse than before his fall Sicut ferae decipulam erumpentes cautiores facti saith Lactantius like wild beasts breaking from their toils they walk more cautiously for ever after Thus it is impossible that sin should be exalted above grace or that the Devils malice can be superiour to the rare arts of the Divine mercy for by his conduct poison it self shall become medicinal and sin like the Persian apple Pomis quae Barbara Persis Miserat ut fama est patriis armata venenis At nunc expositi parvo discrimine lethi Ambrosios praebent succos oblita nocendi transplanted from its native soil to the Athenian gardens loses its natural venome and becomes pleasant as the rinds of Citrons and aromatick as the Eastern spices 6. II. Although sins in the state of penitence can by Gods grace procure an accidental advantage yet that difficulty of overcoming and fierceness of contention which is necessary to them who had contracted evil habits is not by that difficulty an augmentation of the reward As he that willingly breaks his leggs is not more commended for creeping with pain than if he went with pleasure and ease and the taking away our own possibility being a destroying the grace of God a contradiction to the arts of the Divine mercy whatsoever proper effect that infers as it is impious in its cause and miserable in the event so it does nothing of advantage to the vertue but causes great diminution of it * For it is a high mistake crudely to affirm that every repugnancy to an act of vertue and every temptation to a sin if it be overcome increases the reward Indeed if the temptation be wholly from without unsought for prayed against inferr'd infallibly superinduc'd by God then the reward is greater by how much it was the more difficult to obey Thus for Jephthah to pay his daughter which he had vowed and for Abraham to slay his son were greater acts of obedience because they were in despite of great temptations to the contrary and there was nothing evil from within that did lessen the choice or retard the vertue * But when our nature is spoil'd and our strengths diminished when the grace of God by which we stood is despised and cancelled when we have made it natural for us to sin then this remaining inclination to sin and unwillingness to obey is so far from increasing the reward that it is not only a state of danger but it is an unwillingness to doe good an abatement of the choice a state which is still to be mortified and the strengths to be restored and the affections made obedient and the will determined by other objects 7. But if the unwillingness to obey even after the beginnings of repentance were as it is pretended by the Roman Doctors an increase of the merit or reward then 1. It were not fit that we should go about to lessen these inclinations to sin or to exterminate the remains of the old man because if they go off the difficulty being removed the reward must be no more than ordinary II. It would also follow from hence that the less men did delight in Gods service the more pleasing they should be to him For if the reluctancy increases then the perfect choice would lessen the reward And then III. A habit of vertue were not so good as single actions with the remains of a habit of vice upon the same account and a state of imperfection were better than a state of perfection and to grow in grace were great imprudence IV. It were not good to pray against entring into temptation nay it were good we did tempt our selves so we did not yield to provoke our enemy so he did not conquer us to enter into danger so we did not sink under it because these increase the difficulty and this increases the reward All which being such strange and horrid consequences it follows undeniably that the remanent portion of a vicious habit after the mans conversion is not the occasion of a greater reward is not good formally is not good materially but is a fomes a nest of concupiscence a bed of vipers and the spawn of toads 8. Now although this is not a sin if it be considered in its natural capacity as it is the physical unavoidable consequent of actions for an inherent quality may be considered without its appendant evil that is though a Philosopher may think and discourse of it as of a natural production and so without sin yet it does not follow from hence that such a habit or inherent quality is without its proper sin or that its nature is innocent But this is nothing else but to say that a natural Philosopher does not consider things in their moral capacity But just thus every sin is innocent and an act of adultery or the begetting a child in fornication is good a natural Philosopher looks on it as a natural action applying proper actives to their proportion'd passives and operating regularly and by the way of nature Thus we say God concurs to every sin that is to the action in its natural capacity but that is therefore innocent so far that is if you consider it without any relation to manners and laws it is not unlawful But then if you consider the whole action in its intire constitution it is a sin And so is a sinful habit it is vicious and criminal in its whole nature and when the Question is whether any thing be in its own capacity distinctly good or bad the answer must not be made by separating the thing from all considerations of good and bad However it will suffice that a habit of vice in its natural capacity is no otherwise innocent than an act of adultery or drunkenness 2. Of the moral capacity of sinful Habits But then if we consider sinful Habits in their moral capacity we shall find them to be a Lerna malorum and we shall open Pandora's box a swarm of evils will issue thence In the enumerating of which I shall make a great progress to the demonstration of the main Question 9. I. A vicious habit adds many degrees of aversation from God by inclining us to that which God hates It makes us to love and to delight in sin and easily to choose it now by how much the more we approach to sin by so much we are the further remov'd from God And therefore this habitual iniquity the prophet describing calls it magnitudinem iniquitatis and the punishment design'd for it is called thy lot the portion of thy measures that is Plenitudo poenae ad plenitudinem peccatorum a great judgment to an habitual sin a final judgment an exterminating Angel when the sin is confirm'd and of a perfect habit 10. For till habits supervene we are of a middle
severely forbids every single action of sin so with greater caution he provides that we be not guilty of a sinful habit Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies we must not be servants of sin not sold under sin that sin have no dominion over us That is not only that we do not repeat the actions of sin but that we be not enslaved to it under the power of it of such a lost liberty that we cannot resist the temptation For he that is so is guilty before God although no temptation comes Such are they whom S. Peter notes that cannot cease from sin And indeed we cannot but confess the reasonableness of this For all men hate such persons whose minds are habitually averse from them who watch for opportunities to do them evil offices who lose none that are offer'd who seek for more who delight in our displeasure who oftentimes effect what they maliciously will Saul was Davids enemy even when he was asleep For the evil will and the contradicting mind and the spiteful heart are worse than the crooked or injurious hand And as grace is a principle of good so is this of evil and therefore as the one denominates the subject gracious so the other sinful both of them inherent that given by God this introduc'd by our own unworthiness * He that sins in a single act does an injury to God but he that does it habitually he that cannot do otherwise is his essential enemy The first is like an offending servant who deserves to be thrown away but in a vicious habit there is an antipathy The Man is Gods enemy as a Wolf to the Lamb as the Hyaena to the Dog He that commits a single sin hath stain'd his skin and thrown dirt upon it but an habitual sinner is an Ethiop and must be stay'd alive before his blackness will disappear 28. VIII A man is called just or unjust by reason of his disposition to and preparation for an act and therefore much more for the habit Paratum est cor meum Deus O God my heart is ready my heart is ready and S. John had the reward of Martyrdom because he was ready to die for his Lord though he was not permitted and S. Austin affirms that the continency of Abraham was as certainly crown'd as the continence of John it being as acceptable to God to have a chast spirit as a virgin body that is habitual continence being as pleasing as actual Thus a man may be a Persecutor or a Murtherer if he have a heart ready to do it and if a lustful soul be an Adulteress because the desire is a sin it follows that the habit is a particular state of sin distinct from the act because it is a state of vicious desires And as a body may be said to be lustful though it be asleep or eating without the sense of actual urtications and violence by reason of its constitution so may the soul by the reason of its habit that is its vicious principle and base effect of sin be hated by God and condemn'd upon that account 29. So that a habit is not only distinct from its acts in the manner of being as Rhetorick from Logick in Zeno as a fist from a palm as a bird from the egg and the flower from the gemm but a habit differs from its acts as an effect from the cause as a distinct principle from another as a pregnant Daughter from a teeming Mother as a Conclusion from its Premises as a state of aversation from God from a single act of provocation 30. IX If the habit had not an irregularity in it distinct from the sin then it were not necessary to persevere in holiness by a constant regular course but we were to be judg'd by the number of single actions and he only who did more bad than good actions should perish which was affirmed by the Pharisees of old and then we were to live or die by chance and opportunity by actions and not by the will by the outward and not by the inward man then there could be no such thing necessary as the Kingdom of Grace Christs Empire and Dominion in the soul then we can belong to God without belonging to his Kingdom and we might be in God though the Kingdom of God were not in us For without this we might do many single actions of vertue and it might happen that these might be more than the single actions of sin even though the habit and affection and state of sin remain Now if the case may be so as in the particular instance that the mans final condition shall not be determin'd by single actions it must be by habits and states and principles of actions and therefore these must have in them a proper good and bad respectively by which the man shall be judg'd distinct from the actions by which he shall not in the present case be judg'd All which considerations being put together do unanswerably put us upon this conclusion That a habit of sin is that state of evil by which we are enemies to God and slaves of Satan by which we are strangers from the Covenant of Grace and consign'd to the portion of Devils and therefore as a Corollory of all we are bound under pain of a new sin to rise up instantly after every fall to repent speedily for every sin not to let the Sun go down upon our wrath nor rise upon our lust nor run his course upon our covetousness or ambition For not only every period of impenitence is a period of danger and eternal death may enter but it is an aggravation of our folly a continuing to provoke God a further aberration from the rule a departure from life it is a growing in sin a progression towards final impenitence to obduration and Apostasie it is a tempting God and a despising of his grace it is all the way presumption and a dwelling in sin by delight and obedience that is it is a conjugation of new evils and new degrees of evil As pertinacy makes error to be heresie and impenitence makes little sins unite and become deadly and perseverance causes good to be crowned and evil to be unpardonable So is the habit of viciousness the confirmation of our danger and solennities of death the investiture and security of our horrible inheritance 31. The summ is this Every single sin is a high calamity it is a shame and it is a danger in one instant it makes us liable to Gods severe anger But a vicious habit is a conjugation of many actions every one of which is highly damnable and besides that union which is formally an aggravation of the evils there is superinduc'd upon the will and all its ministring faculties a viciousness and pravity which makes evil to be belov'd and chosen and God to be hated and despis'd A vicious habit hath in it all the Physical Metaphysical and Moral degrees of which it can be capable
say this may be a final event I find no warrant for that and think it only to be an intermedial event that is though Adam's sin left us there yet God did not leave us there but instantly gave us Christ as a remedy and now what in particular shall be the state of Unbaptized infants so dying I do not profess to know or teach because God hath kept it as a secret I only know that he is a gracious Father and from his goodness nothing but goodness is to be expected and that is since neither Scripture nor any Father till about Saint Augustine's time did teach the poor Babes could die not onely once for Adam's sin but twice and for ever I can never think that I do my duty to GOD if I think or speak any thing of him that seems so unjust or so much against his goodness And therefore although by Baptism or by the ordinary Ministery Infants are new born and rescued from the state of Adam's account which metonymically may be called a remitting of Original sin that is a receiving them from the punishment of Adam's sin or the state of evil whither in him they are devolved yet Baptism does but consider that grace which God gives in Jesus Christ and he gives it more ways than one to them that desire Baptism to them that die for Christianity and the Church even in Origen's time and before that did account the Babes that died in Bethlehem by the Sword of Herod to be Saints and I do not doubt but he gives it many ways that we know not of And therefore S. Bernard and many others do suppose that the want of Baptism is supplied by the Baptism of the H. Ghost To which purpose the 87 Epistle of S. Bernard is worth the reading But this I add that those who affirmed that Infants without actual Baptism could not be saved affirmed the same also of them if they wanted the H. Eucharist as is to be seen in Paulinus epigr. 6. The writer of Hypognosticon lib. 5. S. Augustin Hom. 10. Serm. 8. de verbis Apostoli 107 Epistle to Vitalis And since no Church did ever enjoyn to any Catechumen any Penance or Repentance for Original sin it seems horrible and unreasonable that any man can be damned for that for which no man is bound to repent SECT V. The Doctrine of Antiquity in this whole matter The summe of all is this 18. I. ORiginal Sin is Adam's sin imputed to us to many evil effects II. It brings death and the evils of this life III. Our evils and necessity being brought upon us bring in a flood of passions which are hard to be bridled or mortified IV. It hath left us in pure naturals disrobed of such aids extraordinary as Adam had V. It deprives us of all title to Heaven or supernatural happiness that is it neither hath in it strength to live a spiritual life nor title to a heavenly VI. It leaves in us our natural concupiscence and makes it much worse Thus far I admit and explicate this Article But all that I desire of the usual Propositions which are variously taught now adays is this I. Original sin is not an inherent evil not a sin properly but metonymically that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many a stain but no sin II. It does not destroy our liberty which we had naturally III. It does not introduce a natural necessity of sinning IV. It does not damn any Infant to the Eternal Pains of Hell And now how consonant my explication of the Article is to the first and best antiquity besides the testimonies I have already brought here concerning some parts of it will appear by the following authorities speaking to the other parts of it and to the whole Question S. Ignatius the Martyr in his Epistle to the Magnesians hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man be a pious man He is a man of God if he be impious he is of the Devil not made so by nature but by his own choice and sentence by which words he excludes nature and affirms our natural liberty to be the cause of our good or evil that is we are in fault but not Adam so as we are And it is remarkable that Ignatius hath said nothing to the contrary of this or to infirm the force of these words and they who would fain have alledged him to contrary purposes cite him calling Adam's sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the old iniquity which appellative is proper enough but of no efficacy in this question Dionysius the Areopagite if he be the Author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy does very well explicate this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When in the beginning humane nature foolishly fell from the state of good things which God gave it it was then entred into a life of passions and the end of the corruption of Death This sentence of his differs not from that of S. Chrysostome before alledged for when man grew miserable by Adam's fall and was disrobed of his aids he grew passionate and peevish and tempted and sick and died This is all his account of Adam's story and it is a very true one But the writer was of a later date not much before S. Austin's time as it is supposed but a learned and a Catholick believer 19. Concerning Justin Martyr I have already given this account that he did not think the liberty of choice impaired by Adam's sin but in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew he gives no account of Original sin but this that Christ was not crucified or born as if himself did need it but for the sake of Mankind which by Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides all that which men commit wickedly upon their own stock of impiety So that the effect of Adam's sin was death and being abused by the Devil for this very reason to rescue us from the effects of this deception and death and to redeem us from our impiety Christ was born and died But all this meddles not with any thing of the present Questions for to this all interests excepting the Pelagians and Socinians will subscribe It is material which is spoken by him or some under his name in the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is no man who is by nature born to sin and do wickedly but hath sinned and done wickedly But he is by nature born to sin who by the choice of his free-will is author to himself of doing what he will whether it be good or bad But an infant as being not indued with any such power it appears sufficiently that he is not by nature born to sin These words when they had been handled as men pleased and turned to such sences as they thought they could escape by at last they appear to be the words of one who understood nothing
I explicate it is wholly against the Pelagians for they wholly deny Original sin affirming that Adam did us no hurt by his sin except only by his example These Men are also followed by the Anabaptists who say that death is so natural that it is not by Adam's fall so much as made actual The Albigenses were of the same opinion The Socinians affirm that Adam's sin was the occasion of bringing eternal death into the World but that it no way relates to us not so much as by imputation But I having shewed in what sence Adam's sin is imputed to us am so far either from agreeing with any of these or from being singular that I have the acknowledgment of an adversary even of Bellarmine himself that it is the doctrine of the Church and he laboriously endeavours to prove that Original sin is meerly ours by imputation Add to this that he also affirms that when Zuinglius says that Original sin is not properly a sin but metonymically that is the effect of one sin and the cause of many that in so saying he agrees with the Catholicks Now these being the main affirmatives of my discourse it is plain that I am not alone but more are with me than against me Now though he is pleased afterwards to contradict himself and say it is veri nominis peccatum yet because I understood not how to reconcile the opposite parts of a contradiction or tell how the same thing should be really a sin and yet be so but by a figure onely how it should be properly a sin and yet onely metonymically and how it should be the effect of sin and yet that sin whereof it is an effect I confess here I stick to my reason and my proposition and leave Bellarmine and his Catholicks to themselves 25. And indeed they that say Original sin is any thing really any thing besides Adam's sin imputed to us to certain purposes that is effecting in us certain evils which dispose to worse they are according to the nature of error infinitely divided and agree in nothing but in this that none of them can prove what they say Anselme Bonaventure Gabriel and others say that Original sin is nothing but a want of Original righteousness Others say that they say something of truth but not enough for a privation can never be a positive sin and if it be not positive it cannot be inherent and therefore that it is necessary that they add indignitatem habendi a certain unworthiness to have it being in every man that is the sin But then if it be asked what makes them unworthy if it be not the want of Original righteousness and that then they are not two things but one seemingly and none really they are not yet agreed upon an answer Aquinas and his Scholars say Original sin is a certain spot upon the soul. Melancthon considering that concupiscence or the faculty of desiring or the tendency to an object could not be a sin fancied Original sin to be an actual depraved desire Illyrious says it is the substantial image of the Devil Scotus and Durandus say it is nothing but a meer guilt that is an obligation passed upon us to suffer the evil effects of it which indeed is most moderate of all the opinions of the School and differs not at all or scarce discernibly from that of Albertus Pighius and Catharinus who say that Original sin is nothing but the disobedience of Adam imputed to us But the Lutherans affirm it to be the depravation of humane nature without relation to the sin of Adam but a vileness that is in us The Church of Rome of late sayes that besides the want of Original righteousness with an habitual aversion from God it is a guiltiness and a spot but it is nothing of Concupiscence that being the effect of it only But the Protestants of Mr. Calvin's perswasion affirm that concupiscence is the main of it and is a sin before and after Baptism but amongst all this infinite uncertainty the Church of England speaks moderate words apt to be construed to the purposes of all peaceable men that desire her communion 26. Thus every one talks of Original sin and agree that there is such a thing but what it is they agree not and therefore in such infinite Variety he were of a strange imperious spirit that would confine others to his particular fancy For my own part now that I have shown what the Doctrine of the purest Ages was what uncertainty there is of late in the Question what great consent there is in some of the main parts of what I affirm and that in the contrary particulars Men cannot agree I shall not be ashamed to profess what company I now keep in my opinion of the Article no worse Men than Zuinglius Stapulensis the great Erasmus and the incomparable Hugo Grotius who also says there are multi in Gallia qui eandem sententiam magnis same argumentis tuentur many in France which with great argument defend the same sentence that is who explicate the article intirely as I do and as S. Chrysostome and Theodoret did of old in compliance with those H. Fathers that went before them with whom although I do not desire to erre yet I suppose their great names are guard sufficient against prejudices and trifling noises and an amulet against the Names of Arminian Socinian Pelagian and I cannot tell what Monsters of appellatives But these are but Boyes tricks and arguments of Women I expect from all that are wiser to examine whether this Opinion does not or whether the contrary does better explicate the truth with greater reason and to better purposes of Piety let it be examined which best glorifies God and does honour to his justice and the reputation of his Goodness which does with more advantage serve the interest of holy living and which is more apt to patronize carelesness and sin These are the measures of wise and good men the other are the measures of Faires and Markets where fancy and noise do govern SECT VI. An Exposition of the Ninth Article of the Church of England concerning Original sin according to Scripture and Reason 27. AFter all this it is pretended and talked of that my Doctrine of Original sin is against the Ninth Article of the Church of England and that my attempt to reconcile them was ineffective Now although this be nothing to the truth or falshood of my Doctrine yet it is much concerning the reputation of it Concerning which I cannot be so much displeased that any man should so undervalue my reason as I am highly content that they do so very much value her Authority But then to acquit my self and my Doctrine from being contrary to the Article all that I can do is to expound the Article and make it appear that not only the words of it are capable of a fair construction but also that it is reasonable they should be expounded so
to sin and a pursuance of that resolution by abstaining from the occasions by praying for the Divine aid by using the proper remedies for its mortification This is essential to repentance and must be in every man in the highest kind For he that does not hate sin so as rather to chuse to suffer any evil than to do any loves himself more than he loves God because he fears to displease himself rather than to displease him and therefore is not a true penitent 13. But although this be not grief or sorrow properly but hatred yet in hatred there is ever a sorrow if we have done or suffered what we hate and whether it be sorrow or no is but a speculation of Philosophy but no ingredient of duty It is that which will destroy sin and bring us to God and that is the purpose of repentance 14. For it is remarkable that sorrow is indeed an excellent instrument of repentance apt to set forward many of its ministeries and without which men ordinarily will not leave their sins but if the thing be done though wholly upon the discourses of reason upon intuition of the danger upon contemplation of the unworthiness of sin or only upon the principle of hope or fear it matters not which is the beginning of repentance For we find fear reckoned to be the beginning of wisdom that is of repentance of wise and sober counsels by Solomon We find sorrow to be reckoned as the beginning of repentance by S. Paul Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of So many ways as there are by which God works repentance in those whom he will bring unto salvation to all the kinds of these there are proper apportion'd passions and as in all good things there is pleasure so in all evil there is pain some way or other and therefore to love and hatred or which is all one to â—leasure and displeasure all passions are reducible as all colours are to black and white So that though in all repentances there is not in every person felt that sharpness of sensitive compunction and sorrow that is usual in sad accidents of the world yet if the sorrow be upon the intellectual account though it be not much perceived by inward sharpnesses but chiefly by dereliction and leaving of the sin it is that sorrow which is possible and in our power and that which is necessary to repentance 15. For in all inquiries concerning penitential sorrow if we will avoid scruple and vexatious fancies we must be careful not to account of our sorrow by the measures of sense but of religion David grieved more for the sickness of his child and the rebellion of his son so far as appears in the story and the Prophet Jeremy in behalf of the Jews for the death of their glorious Prince Josiah and S. Paula Romana at the death of her children were more passionate and sensibly afflicted than for their sins against God that is they felt more sensitive trouble in that than this and yet their repentances were not to be reproved because our penitential sorrow is from another cause and seated in other faculties and fixed upon differing objects and works in other manners and hath a divers signification and is fitted to other purposes and therefore is wholly of another nature It is a displeasure against sin which must be expressed by praying against it and fighting against it but all other expressions are extrinsecal to it and accidental and are no parts of it because they cannot be under a command as all the parts and necessary actions of repentance are most certainly 16. Indeed some persons can command their tears so Gellia in the Epigram Si quis adest jussae prosiliunt lachrymae She could cry when company was there to observe her weeping for her Father and so can some Orators and many Hypocrites and there are some that can suppress their tears by art and resolution so Vlysses did when he saw his wife weep he pitied her but Intra palpebras ceu cornu immota tenebat Lumina vel ferrum lachrymas astúque premebat he kept his tears within his eye-lids as if they had been in a phial which he could pour forth or keep shut at his pleasure But although some can do this at pleasure yet all cannot And therefore S. John Climacus speaks of certain penitents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who because they could not weep expressed their Repentance by beating their breasts and yet if all men could weep when they list yet they may weep and not be sorrowful and though they can command tears yet sorrow is no more to be commanded than hunger and therefore is not a part or necessary duty of Repentance when sorrow is taken for a sensitive trouble 17. But yet there is something of this also to be added to our duty If our constitution be such as to be apt to weep and sensitively troubled upon other intellectual apprehensions of differing objects unless also they find the same effect in their Repentances there will be some cause to suspect that their hatred of sin and value of obedience and its rewards are not so great as they ought to be The Masters of spiritual life give this rule Sciat se culpabiliter durum qui deflet damna temporis vel mortem amici dolorem verò pro peccatis lachrymis non ostendit He that weeps for temporal losses and does not in the same manner express his sorrow for his sins is culpably obdurate which proposition though piously intended is not true For tears are emanations of a sensitive trouble or motion of the heart and not properly subject to the understanding and therefore a man may innocently weep for the death of his friend and yet shed no tears when he hath told a lie and still be in that state of sorrow and displeasure that he had rather die himself than chuse to tell another lie Therefore the rule only hath some proportions of probability in the effect of several intellectual apprehensions As he that is apt to weep when he hath done an unhansome action to his friend who yet will never punish him and is not apt to express his sorrow in the same manner when he hath offended God I say he may suspect his sorrow not to be so great or so real but yet abstractedly from this circumstance to weep or not to weep is nothing to the duty of Repentance save only that it is that ordinary sign by which some men express some sort of sorrow And therefore I understand not the meaning of that prayer of S. Austin Domine dagratiam lachrymarum Lord give me the grace of tears for tears are no duty and the greatest sorrow oftentimes is the driest and excepting that there is some sweetness and ease in shedding tears and that they accompany a soft and a contemplative person an easie and a good nature and such as is apt for religious impressions I know no use of them but
the injury which I have already suffered he cannot make me equal amends because whatever he does to me for the future still it is true that I did suffer evil from him formerly therefore it is necessary that I do what I can to the reparation of that but because what is done and past cannot be undone I must make it up as well as I can that is I must confess my sin and be sorry for it and submit to the judgment of the offended party and he is bound to forgive me the sin and I am bound to make just and prudent amends according to my power for here every one is bound to do his share If the offending person hath done his part of duty the offended must do his that is he must forgive him that wrong'd him if he will not God will untie the penitent man and with the same chain fast bind him that is uncharitable 39. But my brother may be hurt by me though I have taken nothing from him nor intended him injury He may be scandalized by my sin that is tempted to sin incouraged in his vileness or discontented and made sorrowful for my unworthiness and transgression In all these cases it is necessary that we repent to them also that is that we make amends not only by confession to God but to our brethren also For when we acknowledge our folly we affright them from it and by repentance we give them caution that they may not descend into the same state of 〈◊〉 And upon this account all publick criminals were tied to a publick Exoâ—ologesis or Repentance in the Church who by confession of their sins acknowledged their error and entred into the state of repentance and by their being separate from the participation and communion of the mysteries were declared unworthy of a communion with Christ and a participation of his promises till by repentance and the fruits worthy of it they were adjudged capable of Gods pardon 40. At the first this was as the nature of the thing exacted it in case of publick and notorious crimes such which had done injury and wrought publick scandal and so far was necessary that the Church should be repaired if she have been injured if publick satisfaction be demanded it must be done if private be required only then that is sufficient though in case of notorious crimes it were very well if the penitent would make his repentance as exemplary as Modesty and his own and the publick circumstances can permit 41. In pursuance of this in the Primitive Church the Bishop and whom he deputed did minister to these publick satisfactions and amends which custom of theirs admitted of variety and change according as new scandals or new necessities did arise For though by the nature of the thing they only could be necessarily and essentially obliged who had done publick and notorious offences yet some observing the advantages of that way of repentance the prayers of the Church the tears of the Bishop the compassion of the faithful the joy of absolution and reconciliation did come in voluntarily and to do that by choice which the notorious criminals were to do of necessity Then the Priests which the penitents had chosen did publish or enjoyn them to publish their sins in the face of the Church but this grew intolerable and was left off because it grew to be a matter of accusation before the criminal Judge and of upbraiding in private conversation and of confidence to them that fought for occasion and hardness of heart and face and therefore they appointed one only Priest to hear the cases and receive the addresses of the penitents and he did publish the sins of them that came only in general and by the publication of their penances and their separation from the mysteries and this also changed into the more private and by several steps of progression dwindled away into private repentance towards men that is confession to a Priest in private and private satisfactions or amends and fruits of repentance and now Auricular Confession is nothing else but the publick Exomologesis or Repentance Ecclesiastical reduced to ashes it is the reliques of that excellent Discipline which was in some cases necessary as I have declared and in very many cases useful until by the dissolution of manners and the extinction of charity it became unsufferable and a bigger scandal than those which it did intend to remedy The result is this That to enumerate our sins before the Holy man that ministers in holy things that is Confession to a Priest is not virtually included in the duty of Contrition for it not being necessary by the nature of the thing nor the Divine Commandment is not necessary absolutely and properly in order to pardon and therefore is no part of Contrition which without this may be a sufficient disposition towards pardon unless by accident as in the case of scandal the criminal come to be obliged Only this one advantage is to be made of their doctrine who speak otherwise in this Article The Divines in the Council of Trent affirm That they that are contrite are reconciled to God before they receive the Sacrament of Penance as they use to speak that is before Priestly absolution If then a man can be contrite before the Priest absolves him as their saying supposes and as it is certain they may and if the desire of absolution be as they say included in Contrition and consequently that nothing is wanting to obtain pardon to the penitent even before the Priest absolves him it follows that the Priests absolution following this perfect disposition and this actual pardon can effect nothing really the man is pardon'd before-hand and therefore his absolution is only declarative God pardons the man and the Priest by his office is to tell him so when he sees cause for it and observes the conditions completed Indeed if absolution by the Minister of the Church were necessary then to desire it also would be necessary and an act of duty and obedience but then if the desire in case it were necessary to desire it would make Contrition to be complete and perfect and if perfect contrition does actually procure a pardon then the Priestly absolution is only a solemn and legal publication of Gods pardon already actually past in the Court of Heaven For an effect cannot proceed from causes which are not yet in being and therefore the pardon of the sins for which the penitent is contrite cannot come from the Priests ministration which is not in some cases to be obtain'd but desir'd only and afterwards when it can be obtain'd comes when the work is done God it may be accepts the desire but the Priests ministery afterwards is not cannot be the cause why God did accept of that desire because the desire is accepted before the absolution is in being 42. But now although this cannot be a necessary duty for the reasons before reckon'd because the Priest is
but he that turns from sin and mortifies it that confesses it humbly and forsakes it that accuses himself and justifies God that prays for pardon and pardons his offending brother that will rather punish his flesh than nurse his sin that judges himself that he may be acquitted by God so these things be done let every man chuse his own instruments of mortification and the instances and indications of his penitential sorrow SECT VII The former Doctrine reduc'd to Practice 86. HE that will judge of his repentance by his sorrow must not judge of his sorrow by his tears or by any one manner of expression For sorrow puts on divers shapes according to the temper of the body or the natural or accidental affections of the mind or to the present consideration of things Wise men and women do not very often grieve in the same manner or signifie the trouble of intellectual apprehensions by the same indications But if sin does equally smart it may be equally complain'd of in all persons whose natures are alike queâ—ulous and complaining that is when men are forc'd into repentance they are very apprehensive of their present evils and consequent dangers and past follies but if they repent more wisely and upon higher considerations than the affrights of women and weak persons they will put on such affections as are the proper effects of those apprehensions by which they were moved But although this be true in the nature and secret and proportion'd causes of things yet there is no such simplicity and purity of apprehensions in any person or any instance whatsoever but there is something of sense mingled with every tittle of reason and the consideration of our selves mingleâ— with our apprehensions of God and when Philosophy does something our interest does more and there are so few that leave their sins upon immaterial speculations that even of them that pretend to do it there is oftentimes no other reason inducing them to believe they do so than because they do not know the secrets of their own hearts and cannot discern their intentions and therefore when there is not a material sensible grief in penitents there is too often a just cause of suspecting their repentances it does not always proceed from an innocent or a laudable cause unless the penitent be indisposed in all accidents to such effects and impresses of passion 87. II. He that cannot find any sensitive and pungent material grief for his sins may suspect himself because so doing he may serve some good ends but on no wise may we suspect another upon that account for we may be judges of our selves but not of others and although we know enough of our selves to suspect every thing of our selves yet we do not know so much of others but that there may for ought we know be enough to excuse or acquit them in their inquiries after the worthiness of their repentance 88. III. He that inquires after his own repentance and finds no sharpnesses of grief or active sensitive sorrow is only so far to suspect his repentance that he use all means to improve it which is to be done by a long serious and lasting conversation with arguments of sorrow which like a continual dropping will intenerate the spirit and make it malleable to the first motives of repentance No man repents but he that fears some evil to stand at the end of his evil course and whoever feareth unless he be abused by some collateral false perswasion will be troubled for putting himself into so evil a condition and state of things and not to be moved with sad apprehensions is nothing else but not to have considered or to have promised to himself pardon upon easier conditions than God hath promised Therefore let the penitent often meditate of the four last things Death and the day of Judgment the portion of the godly and the sad intolerable portion of accursed souls of the greatness and extension of the duty of repentance and the intension of its acts or the spirit and manner of its performance of the uncertainty of pardon in respect of his own secret and sometimes undiscerned defects the sad evils that God hath inflicted sometimes even upon penitent persons the volatile nature of pleasure and the shame of being a fool in the eyes of God and good men the unworthy usages of our selves and evil returns to God for his great kindnesses let him consider that the last nights pleasure is not now at all and how infinite a folly it is to die for that which hath no being that one of the greatest torments of Hell will be the very indignation at their own folly for that foolish exchange which they have made and there is nothing to allay the misery or to support the spirit of a man who shall so extremely suffer for so very a nothing that it is an unspeakable horror for a man eternally to be restless in the vexations of an everlasting fever and that such a fever is as much short of the eternal anger of God as a single sigh is of that fever that a man cannot think what eternity is nor suffer with patience for one minute the pains which are provided for that eternity and to apply all this to himself for ought every great sinner knows this shall be in his lot and if he dies before his sin is pardon'd he is too sure it shall be so and whether his sin is pardon'd or no few men ever know till they be dead but very many men presume and they commonly who have the least reason He that often and long considers these things will not have cause to complain of too merry a heart But when men repent only in feasts and company and open house and carelesness and inconsideration they will have cause to repent that he hath not repented 89. IV. Every true penitential sorrow is rather natural than solemn that is it is the product of our internal apprehensions rather than outward order and command He that repents only by solemnity at a certain period by the expectation of to morrows Sun may indeed act a sorrow but cannot be sure that he shall then be sorrowful Other acts of repentance may be done in their proper period by order and command upon set days and indicted solemnities such as is fasting and prayer and alms and confession and disciplines and all the instances of humiliation but sorrow is not to be reckoned in this account unless it dwells there before When there is a natural abiding sorrow for our sins any publick day of humiliation can bring it forth and put it into activity but when a sinner is gay and intemperately merry upon Shrove-Tuesday and resolves to mourn upon Ash-Wednesday his sorrow hath in it more of the Theatre than the Temple and is not at all to be relied upon by him that resolves to take severe accounts of himself 90. V. In taking accounts of our penitential sorrow we must be careful
that we do not compare it with secular sorrow and the passions effected by natural or sad accidents For he that measures the passions of the mind by disproportionate objects may as well compare Musick and a Rose and measure weights by the bushel and think that every great man must have a great understanding or that an Ox hath a great courage because he hath a great heart He that finds fault with his repentance because his sorrow is not so great in it as in the saddest accidents of the world should do well to make them equal if he can if he can or if he cannot his work is done If he can let it be done and then the inquiry and the scruple is at an end If he cannot let him not trouble himself for what cannot be done God never requires of us to do 91. VI. Let no man overvalue a single act of sorrow and call it Repentance or be at rest as soon as he hath wip'd his eyes For to be sorrowful which is in the Commandment is something more than an act of sorrow it is a permanent effect and must abide as long as its cause is in being not always actual and pungent but habitual and ready apt to pass into its symbolical expressions upon all just occasions and it must always have this signification viz. 92. VII No man can be said ever truly to have griev'd for his sins if he at any time after does remember them with pleasure Such a man might indeed have had an act of sorrow but he was not sorrowful except only for that time but there was no permanent effect by which he became an enemy to sin and when the act is past the love to sin returns at least in that degree that the memory of it is pleasant No man tells it as a merry story that he once broke his leg or laughs when he recounts the sad groans and intolerable sharpnesses of the stone If there be pleasure in the telling it there is still remaining too much kindness towards it and then the sinner cannot justly pretend that ever he was a hearty enemy to it for the great effect of that is to hate itâ— to leave it and to hate it Indeed when the penitent inquires concerning himself and looks after a sign that he may discern whether he be as he thinks he is really a haâ—er of sin the greatest and most infallible mark which we have to judge by is the leaving it utterly But yet in this thing there is some difference For 93. Some do leave sin but do not hate it They will not do it but they wish it were lawful to do it and this although it hath in it a great imperfection yet it is not always directly criminal for it only supposes a love to the natural part of the action and a hatred of the irregularity The thing they love but they hate the sin of it But others are not so innocent in their leaving of sin They leave it because they dare not do it or are restrain'd by some over-ruling accident but like the heifers that drew the Ark they went lowing after their Calves left in their sâ—â—lls so do these leave their heart behind and if they still love the sin their leaving it is but an imperfect and unacceptable service a Sacrifice without a heart Therefore sin must be hated too that is it must be left out of hatred to it and consequently must be used as naturally we do what we do really hate that is do evil to it and always speak evil of it and secretly have no kindness for it 94. VIII Let every penitent be careful that his sorrow be a cure to his soul but no disease to his body an enemy to his sin but not to his health Exigit autem Interdum ille dolor plus quà m lex ulla dolori Concessit For although no sorrow is greater than our sin yet some greatness of sorrow may destroy those powers of serving God which ought to be preserved to all the purposes of charity and religion This caution was not to be omitted although very few will have use of it because if any should be transported into a pertinacious sorrow by great considerations of their sin and that sorrow meet with an ill temper of body apt to sorrow and afflictive thoughts it would make Religion to be a burden and all passions turn into sorrow and the service of God to consist but of one duty and would naturally tend to very evil consequents For whoever upon the conditions of the Gospel can hope for pardon he cannot maintain a too great actual sorrow long upon the stock of his sins It will be allayed with hope and change into new shapes and be a sorrow in other faculties than where it first began and to other purposes than those to which it did then minister But if his sorrow be too great it is because the man hath little or no hope 95. IX But if it happens that any man falls into an excessive sorrow his cure must be attempted not directly but collaterally not by lessening the consideration of his sins nor yet by comparing them with the greater sins of others like the grave man in the Satyr Si nullum in terris tam detestabile factum Ostendis taceo nec pugnis caedere pectus Te veto nec planâ faciem contundore palmâ Quandoquidem accepto claudenda est janua damno For this is but an instance of the other this lessens the sin indirectly but let it be done by heightning the consideration of the Divine mercy and clemency for even yet this will far exceed and this is highly to be taken heed of For besides that there is no need of taking off his opinion from the greatness of the sin it is dangerous to teach a man to despise a sin at any hand For if after his great sorrow he can be brought to think his sin little he will be the sooner brought to commit it again and think it none at all and when he shall think his sorrow to have been unreasonable he will not so soon be brought to an excellent repentance another time But the Prophets great comfort may safely be applied Misericordia Dei praevalitura est super omnem malitiam hominis Gods mercy is greater than all the malice of men and will prevail over it But this is to be applied so as to cure only the wounds of a conscience that ought to be healed that is so as to advance the reputation and glories of the Divine mercy but at no hand to create confidences in persons incompetent If the man be worthy and capable and yet tempted to a prevailing and excessive sorrow to him in this case and so far the application is to be made In other cases there is no need but some danger 96. X. Although sorrow for sin must be constant and habitual yet to particular acts of sin when a special sorrow is apportion'd it
and those great advantages which by this Doctrine so understood may be reaped if men will be quiet and patient void of prejudice and not void of Charity This Madam is reason sufficient why I offer so many justifications of my Doctrine before any man appears in publick against it but because there are many who do enter into the houses of the rich and the honourable and whisper secret oppositions and accusations rather than arguments against my Doctrine the good Women that are zealous for Religion and make up in the passions of one faculty what is not so visible in the actions and operations of another are sure to be affrighted before they be instructed and men enter caveats in that Court before they try the cause But that is not all For I have found that some men to whom I gave and designed my labours and for whose sake I was willing to suffer the persecution of a suspected truth have been so unjust to me and so unserviceable to your self Madam and to some other excellent and rare personages as to tell stories and give names to my proposition and by secret murmurs hinder you from receiving that good which your wisdom and your piety would have discerned there if they had not affrighted you with telling that a Snake lay under the Plantane and that this Doctrine which is as wholsome as the fruits of Paradise was enwrapped with the infoldings of a Serpent subtile and fallacious Madam I know the arts of these men and they often put me in mind of what was told me by M. Sackvill the late Earl of Dorsets Vncle that the cunning Sects of the World he named the Jesuits and the Presbyterians did more prevail by whispering to Ladies than all the Church of England and the more sober Protestants could do by fine force and strength of argument For they by prejudice or fears terrible things and zealous nothings confident sayings and little stories governing the Ladies Consciences who can perswade their Lords their Lords will convert their Tenants and so the World is all their own I should wish them all good of their profits and purchases if the case were otherwise than it is but because they are questions of Souls of their interest and advantages I cannot wish they may prevail with the more Religious and Zealous Personages and therefore Madam I have taken the boldness to write this tedious Letter to you that I may give you a right understanding and an easie explication of this great Question as conceiving my self the more bound to do it to your satisfaction not only because you are Zealous for the Religion of this Church and are a person as well of Reason as of Religion but also because you have passed divers obligations upon me for which all my services are too little a return DEVS JVSTIFICATVS OR A VINDICATION OF THE Glory of the DIVINE ATTRIBUTES In the Question of ORIGINAL SIN IN Order to which I will plainly describe the great lines of difference and danger which are in the errors and mistakes about this Question 2. I will prove the truth and necessity of my own together with the usefulness and reasonableness of it 3. I will answer those little murmurs by which so far as I can yet learn these men seek to invade the understandings of those who have not leisure or will to examine the thing it self in my own words and arguments 4. And if any thing else falls in by the by in which I can give satisfaction to a Person of Your great Worthiness I will not omit it as being desirous to have this Doctrine stand as fair in your eyes as it is in all its own colours and proportions But first Madam be pleased to remember that the question is not whether there be any such thing as Original Sin for it is certain and confessed on all hands almost For my part I cannot but confess that to be which I feel and groan under and by which all the World is miserable Adam turned his back upon the Sun and dwelt in the dark and the shadow he sinned and fell into Gods displeasure and was made naked of all his supernatural endowments and was ashamed and sentenced to death and deprived of the means of long life and of the Sacrament and instrument of Immortality I mean the Tree of Life he then fell under the evils of a sickly body and a passionate ignorant uninstructed soul his sin made him sickly his sickness made him peevish his sin left him ignorant his ignorance made him foolish and unreasonable His sin left him to his nature and by his nature who ever was to be born at all was to be born a child and to do before he could understand and be bred under Laws to which he was always bound but which could not always be exacted and he was to chuse when he could not â—eason and had passions most strong when he had his understanding most weak and was to ride a wild horse without a bridle and the more need he had of a curb the less strength he had to use it and this being the case of all the World what was every mans evil became all mens greater evil and though alone it was very bad yet when they came together it was made much worse like Ships in a storm every one alone hath enough to do to out-ride it but when they meet besides the evils of the storm they find the intolerable calamity of their mutual concussion and every Ship that is ready to be oppressed with the tempest is a worse tempest to every vessel against which it is violently dashed So it is in mankind every man hath evil enough of his own and it is hard for a man to live soberly temperately and religiously but when he hath Parents and Children Brothers and Sisters Friends and Enemies Buyers and Sellers Lawyers and Physicians a Family and a Neighbourhood a King over him or Tenants under him a Bishop to rule in matters of Government spiritual and a People to be ruled by him in the affairs of their Souls then it is that every man dashes against another and one relation requires what another denies and when one speaks another will contradict him and that which is well spoken is sometimes innocently mistaken and that upon a good cause produces an evil effect and by these and ten thousand other concurrent causes man is made more than most miserable But the main thing is this when God was angry with Adam the man fell from the state of grace for God withdrew his grace and we returned to the state of mere nature of our prime creation And although I am not of Petrus Diaconus his mind who said that when we all fell in Adam we fell into the dirt and not only so but we fell also upon a heap of stones so that we not only were made naked but defiled also and broken all in pieces yet this I believe to be certain that
what made Adam sin when he fell If a fatal decree made him sin then he was nothing to blame Fati ista culpa est Nemo fit fato nocens No guilt upon mankind can lie For what 's the fault of destiny And Adam might with just reason lay the blame from himself and say as Agamemâ—on did in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not I that sinned but it was fate or a fury it was God and not I it was not my act but the effect of the Divine decree and then the same decree may make us sin and not the sin of Adam be the cause of it But if a liberty of will made Adam sin then this liberty to sin being still left us this liberty and not Adams sin is the cause of all our actual Concerning the other clause in the Presbyterian Article that our natural corruption in the regenerate still remains and is still a sin and properly a sin I have I confess heartily opposed it and shall besides my arguments confute it with my blood if God shall call me for it is so great a reproach to the spirit and power of Christ and to the effects of Baptism to Scripture and to right reason that all good people are bound in Conscience to be zealous against it For when Christ came to reconcile us to his Father he came to take away our sins not only to pardon them but to destroy them and if the regenerate in whom the spirit of Christ rules and in whom all their habitual sins are dead are still under the servitude and in the stocks of Original sin then it follows not only that our guilt of Adams sin is greater than our own actual the sin that we never consented to is of a deeper grain than that which we have chosen and delighted in and God was more angry with Cain that he was born of Adam than that he kill'd his Brother and Judas by descent from the first Adam contracted that sin which he could never be quit of but he might have been quit of his betraying the second Adam if he would not have despaired I say not only these horrid consequences do follow but this also will follow that Adams sin hath done some mischief that the grace of Christ can never cure and generation stains so much that regeneration cannot wash it clean Besides all this if the natural corruption remains in the regenerate and be properly a sin then either God hates the regenerate or loves the sinner and when he dies he must enter into Heaven with that sin which he cannot lay down but in the grave as the vilest sinner lays down every sin and then an unclean thing can go to Heaven or else no man can and lastly to say that this natural corruption though it be pardoned and mortified yet still remains and is still a sin is perfect non-sence for if it be mortified it is not it hath no being if it is pardoned it was indeed but now is no sin for till a man can be guilty of sin without obligation to punishment a sin cannot be a sin that is pardoned that is if the obligation to punishment or the guilt be taken away a man is not guilty Thus far Madam I hope you will think I had reason One thing more I did and do reprove in their Westminster Articles and that is that Original sin meaning our sin derived from Adam is contrary to the law of God and doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner binding him over to Gods wrath c. that is that the sin of Adam imputed to us is properly formally and inherently a sin If it were properly a sin in us our sin it might indeed be damnable for every transgression of the Divine Commandment is so but because I have proved it cannot bring eternal damnation I can as well argue thus This sin cannot justly bring us to damnation therefore it is not properly a sin as to say this is properly a sin therefore it can bring us to damnation Either of them both follow well but because they cannot prove it to be a sin properly or any other ways but by a limited imputation to certain purposes they cannot say it infers damnation But because I have proved it cannot infer damnation I can safely conclude it is not formally properly and inherently a sin in us Nec placet ô superi vobis cum vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Nor did it please our God when that our state Was chang'd to add a crime unto our fate I have now Madam though much to your trouble quitted my self of my Presbyterian opponents so far as I can judge fitting for the present but my friends also take some exceptions and there are some objections made and blows given me as it happened to our Blessed Saviour In domo illorum qui diligebant me in the house of my Mother and in the societies of some of my Dearest Brethren For the case is this They joyn with me in all this that I have said viz. That Original sin is ours only by imputation that it leaves us still in our natural liberty and though it hath devested us of our supernaturals yet that our nature is almost the same and by the grace of Jesus as capable of Heaven as it could ever be by derivation of Original righteousness from Adam In the conduct and in the description of this Question being usually esteemed to be only Scholastical I confess they as all men else do usually differ for it was long ago observed that there are sixteen several famous opinions in this one Question of Original sin But my Brethren are willing to confess that for Adams sin alone no man did or shall ever perish And that it is rather to be called a stain than a sin If they were all of one mind and one voice in this Article though but thus far I would not move a stone to disturb it but some draw one way and some another and they that are aptest to understand the whole secret do put fetters and bars upon their own understanding by an importune regard to the great names of some dead men who are called masters upon earth and whose authority is as apt to mislead us into some propositions as their learning is useful to guide us in others but so it happens that because all are not of a mind I cannot give account of every disagreeing man but of that which is most material I shall Some learned persons are content I should say no man is damned for the sin of Adam alone but yet that we stand guilty in Adam and redeemed from this damnation by Christ and if that the Article were so stated it would not intrench upon the justice or the goodness of God for his justice would be sufficiently declared because no man can complain of wrong done him when the evil that he fell into by Adam
seed Must every Bramble every Thistle weed And when each hindrance to the Grain is gone A fruitful crop shall rise of Corn alone When therefore there were so many ways made to the Devil I was willing amongst many others to stop this also and I dare say few Questions in Christendom can say half so much in justification of their own usefulness and necessity I know Madam that they who are of the other side do and will disavow most of these consequences and so do all the World all the evils which their adversaries say do follow from their opinions but yet all the World of men that perceive such evils to follow from a proposition think themselves bound to stop the progression of such opinions from whence they believe such evils may arise If the Church of Rome did believe that all those horrid things were chargeable upon Transubstantiation and upon worshipping of Images which we charge upon the Doctrines I do not doubt but they would as much disown the Propositions as now they do the consequents and yet I do as little doubt but that we do well to disown the first because we espy the latter and though the Man be not yet the doctrines are highly chargeable with the evils that follow it may be the men espy them not yet from the doctrines they do certainly follow and there are not in the World many men who own that which is evil in the pretence but many do such as are dangerous in the effect and this doctrine which I have reproved I take to be one of them Object 4. But if Original sin be not a sin properly why are children baptized And what benefit comes to them by Baptism I answer As much as they need and are capable of and it may as well be asked Why were all the sons of Abraham circumised when in that Covenant there was no remission of sins at all for little things and legal impurities and irregularities there were but there being no sacrifice there but of Beasts whose blood could not take away sin it is certain and plainly taught us in Scripture that no Rite of Moses was expiatory of sins But secondly This Objection can press nothing at all for why was Christ baptized who knew no sin But yet so it behoved him to fulfil all Righteousness 3. Baptism is called regeneration or the new birth and therefore since in Adam Children are born only to a natural life and a natural death and by this they can never arrive at Heaven therefore Infants are baptized because until they be born anew they can never have title to the Promises of Jesus Christ or be heirs of Heaven and co-heirs of Jesus 4. By Bapâ—ism Children are made partakers of the holy Ghost and of the grace of God which I desire to be observed in opposition to the Pelagian Heresie who did suppose Nature to be so perfect that the grace of God was not necessary and that by Nature alone they could go to Heaven which because I affirm to be impossible and that Baptism is therefore necessary because nature is insufficient and Baptism is the great channel of grace there ought to be no envious and ignorant load laid upon my Doctrine as if it complied with the Pelagian against which it is so essentially and so mainly opposed in the main difference of his Doctrine 5. Children are therefore Baptized because if they live they will sin and though their sins are not pardoned before-hand yet in Baptism they are admitted to that state of favour that they are within the Covenant of repentance and Pardon and this is expresly the Doctrine of S. Austin lib. 1. de nupt concup cap. 26. cap. 33. tract 124. in Johan But of this I have already given larger accounts in my Discourse of Baptism Part 2. p. 194. in the Great Exemplar 6. Children are baptized for the Pardon even of Original Sin this may be affirmed truly but yet improperly for so far as it is imputed so far also it is remissible for the evil that is done by Adam is also taken away in Christ and it is imputed to us to very evil purposes as I have already explicated but as it was among the Jews who believed then the sin to be taken away when the evil of punishment is taken off so is Original Sin taken away in Baptism for though the Material part of the evil is not taken away yet the curse in all the sons of God is turned into a blessing and is made an occasion of reward or an entrance to it Now in all this I affirm all that is true and all that is probable for in the same sence as Original stain is a sin so does Baptism bring the Pardon It is a sin metonymically that is because it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many and just so in Baptism it is taken away that it is now the matter of a grace and the opportunity of glory and upon these Accounts the Church Baptizes all her Children Object 5. But to deny Original Sin to be a sin properly and inherently is expresly against the words of S. Paul in the fifth Chapter to the Romans If it be I have done but that it is not I have these things to say 1. If the words be capable of any interpretation and can be permitted to signifie otherwise than is vulgarly pretended I suppose my self to have given reasons sufficient why they ought to be For any interpretation that does violence to right Reason to Religion to Holiness of life and the Divine Attributes of God is therefore to be rejected and another chosen For in all Scriptures all good and all wise men do it 2. The words in question sin and sinner and condemnation are frequently used in Scripture in the lesser sence and sin is taken for the punishment of sin and sin is taken for him who bore the evil of the sin and sin is taken for legal impurity and for him who could not be guilty even for Christ himself as I have proved already and in the like manner sinners is used by the rule of Conjugates and denominatives but it is so also in the case of Bathsheba the Mother of Solomon 3. For the word condemnation it is by the Apostle himself limited to signifie temporal death for when the Apostle says Death passed upon all men in as much as all men have sinned he must mean temporal death for eternal death did not pass upon all men or if he means eternal death he must not mean that it came for Adams sin but in as much as all men have sinned that is upon all those upon whom eternal death did come it came because they also have sinned For if it had come for Adams sin then it had absolutely descended upon all men because from Adam all men descended and therefore all men upon that account were equally guilty as we see all men die naturally 4. The
nor charitable to extend the Gravamen and punishment beyond the instances the Apostles make or their exact parallels But then also it would be remembred that the Apostles speak as fiercely against communion with Fornicatours and all disorders practical as against communion with Hereticks If any man that is called a brother be a Fornicatour or Covetous or an Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat I am certain that a drunkard is as contrary to God and lives as contrary to the Laws of Christianity as an Heretick and I am also sure that I know what drunkenness is but I am not sure that such an Opinion is Heresie neither would other men be so sure as they think for if they did consider it aright and observe the infinite deceptions and causes of deceptions in wise men and in most things and in all doubtful Questions and that they did not mistake confidence for certainty But indeed I could not but smile at those jolly Friers two Franciscans offered themselves to the fire to prove Savonarola to be a Heretick but a certain Jacobine offered himself to the fire to prove that Savonarola had true Revelations and was no Heretick in the mean time Savonarola preacht but made no such confident offer nor durst he venture at that new kind of fire Ordeal And put case all four had past through the fire and died in the flames what would that have proved Had he been a Heretick or no Heretick the more or less for the confidence of these zealous Ideots If we mark it a great many Arguments whereon many Sects rely are no better probation then this comes to Confidence is the first and the second and the third part of a very great many of their propositions But now if men would a little turn the Tables and be as zealous for a good life and all the strictest precepts of Christianity which is a Religion the most holy the most reasonable and the most consummate that ever was taught to man as they are for such Propositions in which neither the life nor the ornament of Christianity is concerned we should find that as a consequent of this piety men would be as carefull as they could to find out all Truths and the sence of all Revelations which may concern their duty and where men were miserable and could not yet others that lived good lives too would also be so charitable as not to adde affliction to this misery and both of them are parts of good life To be compassionate and to help to bear one another's burthens not to destroy the weak but to entertain him meekly that 's a precept of charity and to edeavour to find out the whole will of God that also is a part of the obedience the choice and the excellency of Faith and he lives not a good life that does not doe both these But men think they have more reason to be zealous against Heresie then against a vice in manners because Heresie is infectious and dangerous and the principle of much evil Indeed if by an Heresie we mean that which is against an Article of Creed and breaks part of the Covenant made between God and man by the mediation of Jesus Christ I grant it to be a very grievous crime a calling God's veracity into question and a destruction also of good life because upon the Articles of Creed obedience is built and it lives or dies as the effect does by its proper cause for Faith is the moral cause of obedience But then Heresie that is such as this is also a vice and the person criminal and so the sin is to be esteemed in its degrees of malignity and let men be as zealous against it as they can and employ the whole Arsenal of the spiritual armour against it such as this is worse then adultery or murther inasmuch as the Soul is more noble then the Body and a false Doctrine is of greater dissemination and extent then a single act of violence or impurity Adultery or murther is a duel but Heresie truly and indeed such is an unlawful war it slays thousands The losing of Faith is like digging down a foundation all the superstructures of hope and patience and charity fall with it And besides this Heresie of all crimes is the most inexcusable and of least temptation for true Faith is most commonly kept with the least trouble of any grace in the world and Heresie of itself hath not onely no pleasure in it but is a very punishment because Faith as it opposes heretical or false Opinions and distinguishes from charity consists in mere acts of believing which because they are of true Propositions are natural and proportionable to the understanding and more honourable then false But then concerning those things which men now a-days call Heresie they cannot be so formidable as they are represented and if we consider that drunkenness is certainly a damnable sin and that there are more drunkards then Hereticks and that drunkenness is parent of a thousand vices it may better be said of this vice then of most of those opinions which we call Heresies it is infectious and dangerous and the principle of much evil and therefore as fit an object for a pious zeal to contest against as is any of those Opinions which trouble mens ease or reputation for that is the greatest of their malignity But if we consider that Sects are made and Opinions are called Heresies upon interest and the grounds of emolument we shall see that a good life would cure much of this mischief For First the Church of Rome which is the great Dictatrix of dogmatical Resolutions and the declarer of Heresie and calls Heretick more then all the world besides hath made that the rule of Heresie which is the conservatory of interest and the ends of men For to recede from the Doctrine of the Church with them makes Heresie that is to disrepute their Authority and not to obey them not to be their subjects not to give them the empire of our Conscience is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Heresie So that with them Heresie is to be esteemed clearly by humane ends not by Divine Rules that is formal Heresie which does materially disserve them And it would make a suspicious man a little inquisitive into their particular Doctrines and when he finds that Indulgences and Jubilees and Purgatories and Masses and Offices for the dead are very profitable that the Doctrine of Primacy of Infallibility of Superiority over Councils of indirect power in temporals are great instruments of secular honour he would be apt enough to think that if the Church of Rome would learn to lay her honour at the feet of the Crucifix and despise the world and prefer Jerusalem before Rome and Heaven above the Lateran that these Opinions would not have in them any native strength to support them against the perpetual assaults of
made the argument too hard for them And the whole seventh Chapter of S. John's Gospel is a perpetuall instance of the efficacy of such trifling prejudices and the vanity and weakness of popular understandings Some whole Ages have been abused by a Definition which being once received as most commonly they are upon slight grounds they are taken for certainties in any Science respectively and for Principles and upon their reputation men use to frame Conclusions which must be false or uncertain according as the Definitions are And he that hath observed any thing of the weaknesses of men and the successions of groundless Doctrines from Age to Age and how seldome Definitions which are put into Systems or that derive from the Fathers or are approved among School-men are examined by persons of the same interests will bear me witness how many and great inconveniences press hard upon the perswasions of men who are abused and yet never consider who hurt them Others and they very many are led by authority or examples of Princes and great personages Numquis credit ex Principibus Some by the reputation of one learned man are carried into any perswasion whatsoever And in the middle and latter Ages of the Church this was the more considerable because the infinite ignorance of the Clerks and the men of the Long robe gave them over to be led by those few Guides which were marked to them by an eminency much more then their Ordinary which also did the more amuse them because most commonly they were fit for nothing but to admire what they understood not Their learning then was some skill in the Master of the Sentences in Aquinas or Scotus whom they admired next to the most intelligent order of Angels hence came Opinions that made Sects and division of names Thomists Scotists Albertists Nominals Reals and I know not what monsters of Names and whole families of the same Opinion the whole institute of an Order being engaged to believe according to the Opinion of some leading man of the same Order as if such an Opinion were imposed upon them in virtute sanctae obedientiae But this inconvenience is greater when the principle of the mistake runs higher when the Opinion is derived from a Primitive man and a Saint for then it often happens that what at first was but a plain innocent seduction comes to be made sacred by the veneration which is consequent to the person for having lived long agone and then because the person is also since canonized the errour is almost made eternall and the cure desperate These and the like prejudices which are as various as the miseries of humanity or the variety of humane understandings are not absolute excuses unless to some persons but truly if they be to any they are exemptions to all from being pressed with too peremptory a sentence against them especially if we consider what leave is given to all men by the Church of Rome to follow any one probable Doctor in an Opinion which is contested against by many more And as for the Doctors of the other side they being destitute of any pretences to an infallible medium to determine Questions must of necessity allow the same liberty to the people to be as prudent as they can in the choice of a fallible Guide and when they have chosen if they do follow him into errour the matter is not so inexpiable for being deceived in using the best Guides we had which Guides because themselves were abused did also against their wills deceive me So that this prejudice may the easier abuse us because it is almost like a duty to follow the dictates of a probable Doctor or if it be overacted or accidentally pass into an inconvenience it is therefore to be excused because the Principle was not ill unless we judge by our event not by the antecedent probability Of such men as these it was said by Saint Austin Caeteram turbam non intelligendi vivacitas sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit And Gregory Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The common sort of people are safe in their not enquiring by their own industry and in the simplicity of their understanding relying upon the best Guides they can get 8. But this is of such a nature in which as we may inculpably be deceived so we may turn it into a vice or a design and then the consequent errours will alter the property and become Heresies There are some men that have mens persons in admiration because of advantage and some that have itching ears and heap up Teachers to themselves In these and the like cases the authority of a person and the prejudices of a great reputation is not the excuse but the fault and a Sin is so far from excusing an Errour that Errour becomes a Sin by reason of its relation to that Sin as to its parent and principle SECT XII Of the Innocency of Errour in Opinion in a pious person 1. AND therefore as there are so many innocent causes of Errour as there are weaknesses within and harmless and unavoidable prejudices from without so if ever errour be procured by a vice it hath no excuse but becomes such a crime of so much malignity as to have influence upon the effect and consequent and by communication makes it become criminal The Apostles noted two such causes Covetousness and Ambition the former in them of the Circumcision and the latter in Diotrephes and Simon Magus and there were some that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were of the Long robe too but they were the she-Disciples upon whose Consciences some false Apostles had influence by advantage of their wantonness and thus the three principles of all sin become also the principles of Heresie the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life And in pursuance of these arts the Devil hath not wanted fuell to set a-work Incendiaries in all Ages of the Church The Bishops were always honourable and most commonly had great Revenues and a Bishoprick would satisfie the two designs of Covetousness and Ambition and this hath been the golden apple very often contended for and very often the cause of great fires in the Church Thebulis quia rejectus ab Episcopatu Hierosolymitano turbare coepit Ecclesiam said Egesippus in Eusebius Tertullian turned Montanist in discontent for missing the Bishoprick of Carthage after Agrippinus and so did Montanus himself for the same discontent saith Nicephorus Novatus would have been Bishop of Rome Donatus of Carthage Arius of Alexandria Aërius of Sebastia but they all missed and therefore all of them vexed Christendom And this was so common a thing that oftentimes the threatning the Church with a Schism or a Heresie was a design to get a Bishoprick And Socrates reports of Asterius that he did frequent the Conventicles of the Arians Nam Episcopatum aliquem ambiebat And setting aside the infirmities of men and their innocent
act of which by nature they have the faculty so if it did yet Baptism is not the means of conveying the Holy Ghost For that which Peter says Be baptized and ye shall receive the holy Ghost signifies no more then this First be baptized and then by imposition of the Apostles hands which was another mysterie and rite ye shall receive the Promise of the Father And this is nothing but an insinuation of the rite of Confirmation as is to this sense expounded by divers ancient Authours and in ordinary ministery the effect of it is not bestowed upon any unbaptized persons for it is in order next after Baptism and upon this ground Peter's Argument in the case of Cornelius was concluding enough à majori ad minus thus the Holy Ghost was bestowed upon him and his family which gift by ordinary ministery was consequent to Baptism not as the effect is to the cause or to the proper instrument but as a consequent is to an antecedent in a chain of causes accidentally and by positive institution depending upon each other God by that miracle did give testimony that the persons of the men were in great dispositions towards Heaven and therefore were to be admitted to those Rites which are the ordinary inlets into the Kingdome of Heaven But then from hence to argue that wherever there is a capacity of receiving the same grace there also the same sign is to be ministred and from hence to infer Paedo baptism is an Argument very fallacious upon several grounds First because Baptism is not the sign of the Holy Ghost but by another mystery it was conveyed ordinarily and extraordinarily it was conveyed independently from any mystery and so the Argument goes upon a wrong supposition Secondly if the supposition were true the proposition built upon it is false for they that are capable of the same grace are not always capable of the same sign for women under the Law of Moses although they were capable of the righteousness of Faith yet they were not capable of the sign of Circumcision For God does not always convey his graces in the same manner but to some mediately to others immediately and there is no better instance in the world of it then the gift of the Holy Ghost which is the thing now instanced in this contestation for it is certain in Scripture that it was ordinarily given by imposition of hands and that after Baptism and when this came into an ordinary ministry it was called by the ancient Church Chrism or Confirmation but yet it was given sometimes without imposition of hands as at Pentecost and to the family of Cornelius sometimes before Baptism sometimes after sometimes in conjunction with it 22. And after all this lest these Arguments should not ascertain their Cause they fall on complaining against God and will not be content with God unless they may baptize their children but take exceptions that God did more for the children of the Jews But why so Because God made a Covenant with their children actually as Infants and consigned it by Circumcision Well so he did with our children too in their proportion He made a Covenant of spiritual Promises on his part and spiritual and real services on ours and this pertains to children when they are capable but made with them as soon as they are alive and yet not so with the Jews babes for as their Rite consigned them actually so it was a national and temporal blessing and Covenant as a separation of them from the portion of the Nations a marking them for a peculiar people and therefore while they were in the wilderness and separate from the commixture of all people they were not at all circumcised but as that Rite did seal the righteousness of Faith so by virtue of its adherencie and remanency in their flesh it did that work when the children came to age But in Christian Infants the case is otherwise for the new Covenant being established upon better Promises is not onely to better purposes but also in distinct manner to be understood when their spirits are as receptive of a spiritual act or impress as the bodies of Jewish children were of the sign of Circumcision then it is to be consigned But this business is quickly at an end by saying that God hath done no less for ours then for their children for he will doe the mercies of a Father and Creatour to them and he did no more to the other But he hath done more to ours for he hath made a Covenant with them and built it upon Promises of the greatest concernment he did not so to them But then for the other part which is the main of the Argument that unless this mercy be consigned by Baptism as good not at all in respect of us because we want the comfort of it this is the greatest vanity in the world For when God hath made a Promise pertaining also to our children for so our Adversaries contend and we also acknowledge in its true sense shall not this promise this word of God be of sufficient truth certainty and efficacy to cause comfort unless we tempt God and require a sign of him May not Christ say to these men as sometime to the Jews A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign but no sign shall be given unto it But the truth on 't is this Argument is nothing but a direct quarrelling with God Almighty 23. Now since there is no strength in the Doctrinal part the practice and precedents Apostolical and Ecclesiastical will be of less concernment if they were true as is pretended because actions Apostolical are not always Rules for ever it might be fit for them to doe it pro loco tempore as divers others of their Institutions but yet no engagement past thence upon following Ages for it might be convenient at that time in the new spring of Christianity and till they had engaged a considerable party by that means to make them parties against the Gentiles Superstition and by way of pre-occupation to ascertain them to their own Sect when they came to be men or for some other reason not transmitted to us because the Question of fact itself is not sufficiently determined For the insinuation of that precept of baptizing all Nations of which Children certainly are a part does as little advantage as any of the rest because other parallel expressions of Scripture do determine and expound themselves to a sense that includes not all persons absolutely but of a capable condition as Adorate eum omnes gentes psallite Deo omnes nationes terrae and divers more 24. As for the conjecture concerning the family of Stephanus at the best it is but a conjecture and besides that it is not proved that there were children in the family yet if that were granted it follows not that they were baptized because by whole families in Scripture is meant all persons of reason and age within the
Testament they dishonour and make a pageantry of the Sacrament they ineffectually represent a sepulture into the death of Christ and please themselves in a sign without effect making Baptism like the fig-tree in the Gospel full of leaves but no fruit and they invocate the Holy Ghost in vain doing as if one should call upon him to illuminate a stone or a tree 24. Thus far the Anabaptists may argue and men have disputed against them with so much weakness and confidence that we may say of them as S. Gregory Nazianzen observes of the case of the Church in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. They have been encouraged in their errour more by the accidental advantages we have given them by our weak arguings then by any excellency of their wit and much less any advantage of their cause It concerned not the present design of this Book to enquire whether these men speak true or no for if they speak probably or so as may deceive them that are no fools it is argument sufficient to perswade us to pity the erring man that is deceived without design and that is all that I intended But because all men will not understand my purpose or think my meaning innocent unless I answer the Arguments which I have made or gathered for mine and their adversaries although I say it be nothing to the purpose of my Book which was onely to represent that even in a wrong cause there may be invincible causes of deception to innocent and unfortunate persons and of this truth the Anabaptists in their question of Paedo baptism is a very great instance yet I will rather chuse to offend the rules of Art then not to fulfill all the requisites of charity I have chosen therefore to adde some animadversions upon the Anabaptists plea upon all that is material and which can have any considerable effect in the Question For though I have used this art and stratagem of peace justly by representing the Enemie's strength to bring the other party to thoughts of charity and kind comportments yet I could not intend to discourage the right side or to make either a mutiny or defection in the Armies of Israel I do not as the Spies from Canaan say that these men are Anakims and the city-walls reach up to Heaven and there are giants in the Land I know they are not insuperable but they are like the blind and the lame set before a wall that a weak man can leap over and a single troup armed with wisedome and truth can beat all their guards But yet I think that he said well and wisely to Charles the fighting Duke of Burgundy that told him that the Switzers strength was not so to be despised but that an honourable peace and a Christian usage of them were better then a cruel and a bloudy war The event of that battel told all the world that no Enemy is to be despised and rendred desperate at the same time and that there are but few causes in the world but they do sometimes meet with witty Advocates in themselves put on such semblances of truth as will if not make the victory uncertain yet make peace more safe prudent mutual charity to be the best defence And First I do not pretend to say that every Argument brought by good men and wise in a righâ— cause must needs be demonstrative The Divinity of the eternal Son of God is a Truth of as great concernment and as great certainty as any thing that ever was disputed in the Christian Church and yet he that reads the writings of the Fathers and the Acts of Councils convened about that great Question will find that all the armour is not proof which is used in a holy War For that seems to one which is not so to another and when a man hath one sufficient reason to secure him and make him confident every thing seems to him to speak the same sense though to an adversary it does not for the one observes the similitude and pleaseth himself the other watches onely the dissonancies and gets advantage because one line of likeness will please a believing willing man but one will not do the work and where many dissimilitudes can be observed but one similitude it were better to let the shadow alone then hazard the substance And it is to be observed that Hereticks and misbelievers do apply themselves rather to disable truth then directly to establish their errour and every Argument they wrest from the hand of their adversaries is to them a double purchase it takes from the other and makes him less and makes himself greater the way to spoil a strong man is to take from him the armour in which he trusted and when this adversary hath espied a weak part in any discourse he presently concludes that the cause is no stronger and reckons his victories by the colours that he takes though they signified nothing to the strength of the cause And this is the main way of proceeding in this Question for they rather endeavour to shew that we cannot demonstrate our part of the Question then that they can prove theirs And as it is indeed easier to destroy then to build so it is more agreeable to the nature and to the design of Heresie and therefore it were well that in this and in other Qâ—stions where there are watchfull adversaries we should fight as Gideon did with three hundred hardy brave fellows that would stand against all violence rather then to make a noise with rams Horns and broken pitchers like the men at the siege of Jericho And though it is not to be expected that all Arguments should be demonstrative in a true cause yet it were well if the Generals of the Church which the Scripture affirms is terrible as an army with banners should not by sending out weak parties which are easily beaten weaken their own army and give confidence to the Enemy Secondly Although it is hard to prove a negative and it is not in many cases to be imposed upon a Litigant yet when the affirmative is received and practised whoever will disturb the actual perswasion must give his reason and offer proof for his own Doctrine or let me alone with mine For the reason why negatives are hard to prove is because they have no positive cause but as they have no being so they have no reason but then also they are first and before affirmatives that is such which are therefore to prevail because nothing can be said against them Darkness is before light and things are not before they are and though to prove that things are something must be said yet to prove they are not nothing is to be alledged but that they are not and no man can prove they are But when an affirmative hath entred and prevailed because no effect can be without some positive cause therefore this which came in upon some cause or other must not be
of whom we reade nothing in Scripture that either they were actually baptized or had a commandment so to be To which may be added that as the taking of Priestly Orders disobliges the suscipient from receiving Chrism or Confirmation in case he had it not before so for ought appears in Scripture to the contrary it may excuse from Baptism But if it does not then the same way of arguing which obliges women or the Clergy to be baptized will be sufficient warrant to us to require in the case of Infants no more signal precept then in the other and to be content with the measures of wise men who give themselves to understand the meaning of Doctrines and Laws and not to exact the tittles and unavoidable commands by which fools and unwilling persons are to be governed lest they die certainly if they be not called upon with univocal express open and direct commandments But besides all this and the effect of all the other Arguments there is as much command for Infants to be baptized as for men there being in the words of Christ no nomination or specification of persons but onely in such words as can as well involve children as old men as Nisi quis and omnes gentes and the like Ad 16. But they have a device to save all harmless yet for though it should be granted that infants are press'd with all the evils of original sin ye there will be no necessity of Baptism to Infants because it may very well be supposed that as Infants contracted the relative guilt of Adam's sin that is the evils descending by an evil inheritance from him to us without any solemnity so may Infants be acquitted by Christ without solemnity or the act of any other man This is the summe of the 16 th Number To which the Answer is easie First that at the most it is but a dream of proportions and can infer onely that if it were so there were some correspondency between the effects descending upon us from the two great Representatives of the world but it can never infer that it ought to be so For these things are not wrought by the ways of Nature in which the proportions are regular and constant but they are wholly arbitrary and mysterious depending upon extrinsick causes which are conducted by other measures which we onely know by events and can never understand the reasons For because the sin of Adam had effect upon us without a Sacrament must it therefore be wholly unnecessary that the death of Christ be applied to us by Sacramental ministrations If so the Argument will as well conclude against the Baptism of men as of Infants for since they die in Adam and had no solemnity to convey that death therefore we by Christ shall all be made alive and to convey this life there needs no Sacrament This way of arguing therefore is a very trifle but yet this is not As Infants were not infected with the stain and injured by the evils of Adam's sin but by the means of natural generation so neither shall they partake of the benefits of Christ's death but by spiritual regeneration that is by being baptized into his death For it is easier to destroy then to make alive a single crime of one man was enough to ruine him and his posterity but to restore us it became necessary that the Son of God should be incarnate and die and be buried and rise again and intercede for us and become our Law-giver and we be his subjects and keep his Commandments There was no such order of things in our condemnation to death must it therefore follow that there is no such in the justification of us unto life To the first there needs no Sacrament for evil comes fast enough but to the latter there must goe so much as God please and the way which he hath appointed us externally is Baptism to which if he hath tied us it is no matter to us whether he hath tied himself to it or no for although he can goe which way he please yet he himself loves to goe in the ways of his ordinary appointing as it appears in the extreme paucity of Miracles which are in the world and he will not endure that we should leave them So that although there are many thousand ways by which God can bring any reasonable soul to himself yet he will bring no soul to himself by ways extraordinary when he hath appointed ordinary and therefore although it be unreasonable of our own heads to carry Infants to God by Baptism without any direction from him yet it is not unreasonable to understand Infants to be comprehended in the duty and to be intended in the general precept when the words do not exclude them nor any thing in the nature of the Sacrament and when they have a great necessity for the relief of which this way is commanded and no other way signified all the world will say there is reason we should bring them also the same way to Christ. And therefore though we no ways doubt but if we doe not our duty to them God will yet perform his mercifull intention yet that 's nothing to us though God can save by miracle yet we must not neglect our charitable ministeries Let him doe what he please to or for Infants we must not neglect them Ad 6. The Argument which is here described is a very reasonable inducement to the belief of the certain effect to be consequent to the Baptism of Infants Because Infants can do nothing towards Heaven and yet they are designed thither therefore God will supply it But he supplies it not by any internall assistances and yet will supply it therefore by an externall But there is no other externall but Baptism which is of his own institution and designed to effect those blessings which Infants need therefore we have reason to believe that by this way God would have them brought Ad 17. To this it is answered after the old rate that God will doe it by his own immediate act Well I grant it that is he will give them Salvation of his own goodness without any condition on the Infants part personally performed without Faith and Obedience if the Infant dies before the use of Reason but then whereas it is added that to say God will doe it by an externall act and ministery and that by this Rite of Baptism and no other is no good Argument unless God could not doe it without such means or said he would not The Reply is easie that we say God will effect this grace upon Infants by this externall ministery not because God cannot use another nor yet because he hath said he will not but because he hath given us this and hath given us no other For he that hath a mind to make an experiment may upon the same argument proceed thus God hath given bread to strengthen man's heart and hath said that in the sweat of our
brows we shall eat bread and 't is commanded that if they do not work they shall not eat there being certain laws and conditions of eating I will give to my labourers and hirelings but therefore my child shall have none for be you sure if I give to my child no man's-meat yet God will take as great â—are of Infants as of others and God will by his own immediate mercy keep them alive as long as he hath intended them to live but to say that therefore he will doe it by externall food is no good argument unless God could not doe it without such means or that he had said he would not To this I suppose any reasonable person would say I have given sufficient answer if I tell him that the argument is good that the Infants must eat man's food although God can keep them alive without it and although he hath not said that he will not keep them alive without it I say the argument is good because he hath given them this way and though he could give them another and did never say he would not give them another yet because he never did give them another it is but reasonable that they should have this To the last clause of this number viz. why cannot God as well doe his mercies to infants now immediately as he did before the institution either of Circumcision or Baptism I answer that I know no man that says he cannot but yet this was not sufficient to hinder babes from Circumcision and why then shall it hinder them from Baptism For though God could save Infants always without Circumcision as well as he did sometime yet he required this of them and therefore it may be so in Baptism this pretence notwithstanding Ad 7. This number speaks to the main inquiry and shews the commandement Vnless a man be born of water and of the spirit he shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven This precept was in all Ages expounded to signifie the ordinary necessity of Baptism to all persons and nisi quis can mean Infants as well as men of age and because it commands a new birth and a regeneration and implies that a natural birth cannot intitle us to Heaven but the second birth must Infants who have as much need and as much right to heaven as men of years and yet cannot have it by natural or first-birth must have it by the second and spiritual and therefore all are upon the same main account and when they are accidentally differenced by age they are also differenced by correspondent accidental and proportionable duties but all must be born again This birth is expressed here by water and the Spirit that is by the Spirit in baptismal water for that is in Scripture called the Laver of a new birth or regeneration Ad 18. But here the Anab. gives us his warrant Though Christ said None but those who are born again by Water and the Spirit shall enter into Heaven he answers fear it not I will warrant you To this purpose it was once said before Yea but hath God said In the day ye shall eat thereof ye shall die I say ye shall not die but ye shall be like Gods But let us hear the answer First It is said that Baptism and the Spirit signifie the same thing for by water is meant the effect of the Spirit I reply that therefore they do not signifie the same thing because by water is meant the effect of the Spirit unless the effect and the cause be the same thing so that here is a contradiction in the parts of the Allegation But if they signifie two things as certainly they do then they may as well signifie the sign and the thing signified as the cause and the effect or they may mean the Sacrament and the grace of the Sacrament as it is most agreeable to the whole analogie of the Gospel For we are sure that Christ ordained Baptism and it is also certain that in Baptism he did give the Spirit and therefore to confound these two is to no purpose when severally they have their certain meaning and the Laws of Christ and the sense of the whole Church the institution and the practice of Baptism make them two terms of a relation a sign and a thing signified the Sacrament and the grace of the Sacrament For I offer it to the consideration of any man that believes Christ to have ordained the Sacrament of Baptism which is most agreeable to the institution of Christ that by water and the spirit should be meant the outward element and inward grace or that by water and spirit should be meant onely the Spirit cleansing us like water But suppose it did mean so what would be effected or perswaded by it more then by the other If it be said that then Infants by this place were not obliged to Baptism I reply that yet they were obliged to new birth nevertheless they must be born again of the Spirit if not of water and the Spirit and if they are bound to be regenerate by the Spirit why they shall not be baptized with water which is the symbol and Sacrament the vehiculum and channel of its ordinary conveyance I profess I cannot understand how to make a reasonable conjecture But it may be they mean that if by water and the Spirit be onely meant Spiritus purificans the cleansing purifying Spirit then this place cannot concern Infants at all But this loop-hole I have already obstructed by placing a bar that can never be removed For it is certain and evident that regeneration or new birth is here enjoyned to all as of absolute and indispensable necessity and if Infants be not obliged to it then by their natural birth they goe to Heaven or not at all but if Infants must be born again then either let these adversaries shew any other way of new birth but this of water and the Spirit or let them acknowledge this to belong to infants and then the former discourse returns upon them in its full strength So that now I shall not need to consider their parallel instance of being baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire For although there are differences enough to be observed the one being onely a Prophecy and the other a Precept the one concerning some onely and the other concerning all the one being verified with degrees and variety the other equally and to all yet this place which in the main expression I confess to have similitude was verified in the letter and first signification of it and so did relate to the miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost in the likeness of tongues of fire but this concerns not all for all were not so baptized And whereas it is said in the Objection that the Baptist told not Christ's Disciples but the Jews and that therefore it was intended to relate to all it was well observed but to no purpose for Christ at that time had no
Disciples But he told it to the Jews and yet it does not follow that they should all be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire but it is meant onely that that glorious effect should be to them a sign of Christ's eminency above him they should see from him a Baptism greater then that of John And that it must be meant of that miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost and not of any secret gift or private immission appears because the Baptist offered it as a sign and testimony of the prelation and greatness of Christ above him which could not be proved to them by any secret operation which cometh not by observation but by a great and miraculous mission such as was that in Pentecost So that hence to argue that we may as well conclude that Infants must also pass through the fire as through the water is a false conclusion inferred from no premisses because this being onely a Prophecy and inferring no duty could neither concern men or children to any of the purposes of their Argument For Christ never said Vnless ye be baptized with fire and the Spirit ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven but of water and the Spirit he did say it therefore though they must pass through the water yet no smell of fire must pass upon them But there are yet two things by which they offer to escape The one is that in these words Baptism by water is not meant at all but Baptism by the Spirit onely because S. Peter having said that Baptism saves us he addes by way of explication not the washing of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God plainly saying that it is not water but the Spirit To this I reply that when water is taken exclusively to the Spirit it is very true that it is not water that cleanses the Soul and the cleansing of the body cannot save us but who-ever urges the necessity of Baptism urges it but as a necessary Sacrament or Instrument to convey or consign the Spirit and this they might with a little observation have learned there being nothing more usual in discourse then to deny the effect to the instrument when it is compared with the principle and yet not intend to deny to it an instrumental efficiency It is not the pen that writes well but the hand and S. Paul said It is not I but the grace of God and yet it was gratia Dei mecum that is the principal and the less principal together So S. Peter It is not water but the Spirit or which may come to one and the same not the washing the filth of the flesh but purifying the conscience that saves us and yet neither one nor the other are absolutely excluded but the effect which is denied to the instrument is attributed to the principal cause But however this does no more concern Infants then men of age for they are not saved by the washing the body but by the answer of a good conscience by the Spirit of holiness and sanctification that is water alone does not doe it unless the Spirit move upon the water But that water also is in the ministery and is not to be excluded from its portion of the work appears by the words of the Apostle The like figure whereunto even Baptism saves us c. that is Baptism even as it is a figure saves us in some sense of other by way of ministery and instrumental efficiency by conjunction and consolidation with the other but the ceremony the figure the Rite and external ministery must be in or else his words will in no sense be true and could be made true by no interpretation because the Spirit may be the thing figured but can never be a figure The other little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that these words were spoken before Baptism was ordained and therefore could not concern Baptism much less prove the necessity of baptizing Infants I answer that so are the sayings of the Prophets long before the coming of Christ and yet concerned his coming most certainly Secondly They were not spoken before the institution of Baptism for the Disciples of Christ did baptize more then the Baptist ever in his life-time they were indeed spoken before the commission was of baptizing all nations or taking the Gentiles into the Church but not before Christ made Disciples and his Apostles baptized them among the Jews And it was so known a thing that great Prophets and the Fathers of an Institution did baptize Disciples that our Blessed Saviour upbraided Nicodemus for his ignorance of that particular and his not understanding words spoken in the proportion and imitation of custome so known among them But then that this Argument which presses so much may be attempted in all the parts of it like Souldiers fighting against Curiassiers that try all the joynts of their armour so doe these to this For they object in the same number that the exclusive negative of Nisi quis does not include Infants but onely persons capable for say they this no more infers a necessity of Infants Baptism then the parallel words of Christ Nisi comâ—deritis unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you infer a necessity to give them the holy Communion c. With this Argument men use to make a great noise in many Questions but in this it will signifie but little First Indeed to one of the Roman Communion it will cause some disorder in this Question both because they think it unlawfull to give the holy Communion to Infants and yet that these words are meant of the holy Communion and if we thought so too I do not doubt but we should communicate them with the same opinion of necessity as did the Primitive Church But to the thing itself I grant that the expression is equal and infers an equal necessity in their respective cases and therefore it is as necessary to eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his bloud as to be baptized but then it is to be added that eating and drinking are metaphors and allusions us'd onely upon occasion of Manna which was then spoken of and which occasioned the whole discourse but the thing itself is nothing but that Christ should be received for the life of our Souls as bread and drink is for the life of our bodies Now because there are many ways of receiving Christ there are so many ways of obeying this precept but that some way or other it be obeyed is as necessary as that we be baptized Here onely it is declared to be necessary that Christ be received that we derive our life and our spiritual and eternall being from him now this can concern Infants and does infer an ordinary necessity of their Baptism for in Baptism they are united to Christ and Christ to them in Baptism they receive the beginnings of a new life
have a title to the Promises then the thing is done and this title of theirs can be signified by these words and then either this is a good argument or the thing is confessed without it For he that hath a title to the Promises of the Gospel hath a title to this Promise here mentioned the promise of the Holy Spirit for by him we are sealed to the day of redemption And indeed that this mystery may be rightly understood we are to observe that the Spirit of God is the great ministery of the Gospel and whatsoever blessing Evangelicall we can receive it is the emanation of the Spirit of God Grace and Pardon Wisedome and Hope offices and titles and relations powers priviledges and dignities all are the good things of the Spirit whatsoever we can profit withall or whatsoever we can be profited by is a gift of God the Father of spirits and is transmitted to us by the Holy Spirit of God For it is but a trifle and a dream to think that no person receives the Spirit of God but he that can doe actions and operations spiritual S. Paul distinguishes the effects of the Spirit into three classes there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides these operations there are gifts and ministeries and they that receive not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the operations or powers to doe actions spiritual may yet receive gifts or at least the blessings of ministery they can be ministred to by others who from the Spirit have received the power of ministration And I instance in these things in which it is certain we can receive the Holy Spirit without any predisposition of our own First We can receive gifts even the wicked have them and they who shall be rejected at the day of Judgement shall yet argue for themselves that they have wrought miracles in the name of the Lord Jesus and yet the gift of miracles is a gift of the Holy Spirit and if the wicked can receive them who are of dispositions contrary to all the emanations of the Holy Spirit then much more may children◠who although they cannot prepare themselves any more then the wicked do yet neither can they doe against them to hinder or obstruct them But of this we have an instance in a young child Daniel whose spirit God raised up to acquit the innocent and to save her soul from unrighteous Judges and when the boys in the street sang Hosanna to the Son of David our Blessed Lord said that if they had held their peace the stones of the street would have cried out Hosanna And therefore that God should from the mouths of babes and sucklings ordain his own praise is one of the Magnalia Dei but no strange thing to be believed by us who are so apparently taught it in Holy Scripture Secondly Benediction or blessing is an emanation of God's Holy Spirit and in the form of blessing which is recorded in the Epistles of S. Paul one great part of it is the communication of the Holy Spirit and it is very probable that those three are but Synonyma The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is to give us his Holy Spirit and the love of God is to give us his Holy Spirit for the Spirit is the love of the Father and our Blessed Saviour argues it as the testimony of God's love to us If ye who are evil know how to give good things to your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Spirit to them that ask him Now since the great summe and compendium of Evangelicall blessings is the Holy Spirit and this which is expressed by three Synonyma's in the second Epistle to the Corinthians is in the first reduced to one it is all but the Grace of the Lord Jesus it will follow that since our Blessed Saviour gave his solemn blessing to children his blessing relating to the Kingdom of Heaven for of such is the Kingdom he will not deny his Spirit to them when he blessed them he gave them something of his Spirit some emanation of that which blesses us all and without which no man can be truly blessed Thirdly Titles to inheritance can be given to Infants without any predisposing act of their own Since therefore Infants dying so can as we all hope receive the inheritance of Saints some mansion in Heaven in that Kingdom which belongs to them and such as they are and that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the consignation to that inheritance nothing can hinder them from receiving the Spirit that is nothing can hinder them to receive a title to the inheritance of the Saints which is the free gift of God and the effect and blessing from the Spirit of God Now how this should prove to Infants to be a title to Baptism is easie enough to be understood For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body that is the Spirit of God moves upon the waters of Baptism and in that Sacrament adopts us into the mysticall body of Christ and gives us title to a coinheritance with him Ad 21. So that this perfectly confutes what is said in the beginning of Number 21. that Baptism is not the means of conveying the Holy Ghost For it is the Spirit that baptizes it is the Spirit that adopts us to an inheritance of the Promises it is the Spirit that incorporates us into the mysticall body of Christ and upon their own grounds it ought to be confessed for since they affirm the water to be nothing without the Spirit it is certain that the water ought not to be without the Spirit and therefore that this is the soul and life of the Sacrament and therefore usually in conjunction with that ministery unless we hinder it and it cannot be denied but that the Holy Ghost was given ordinarily to new converts at their Baptism And whereas it is said in a parenthesis that this was not as the effect is to the cause or to the proper instrument but as a consequent is to an antecedent in a chain of causes accidentally and by positive institution depending upon each other it is a groundless assertion for when the men were called upon to be baptized and were told they should receive the Holy Ghost and we find that when they were baptized they did receive the Holy Ghost what can be more reasonable then to conclude Baptism to be the ministery of the Spirit And to say that this was not consequent properly and usually but accidentally onely it followed sometimes but was not so much as instrumentally effected by it is as if one should boldly deny all effect to Physick for though men are called upon to take Physick and told they should recover and when they do take Physick they do recover yet men may unreasonably say this recovery does follow the taking of Physick not as an effect to the cause or to the