certainly Therefore we must understand the Serpent to have crept in two senses before sin and after sin that he crept before sin naturally by the nature of his creation that he crept after sin according to the decree of God and by that condemnation which was onely in spirit So may we understand Adam to have dyed two manner of ways Naturally that he dyed naturally according to the first intention of his making before the Law Legally and after a spiritual manner after the Law by that decree and Law of condemnation which is spiritually conceiv'd Therefore we shall think that there is a twofold death in all men as we conceive to be in Adam Natural which happens naturally to all men by their own imbred nature which is corruptible and mortal A Legal one which smote all men that minute mystically when it was decreed against Adam A natural death by which men dyed naturally before the Law a Legal death which passed spiritually upon them after the Law by transgression of the Law A natural death which followed mans natural sin a Legal death caused by the legal sin of men from the sin of Adam A mystical cause of a mystical effect which onely by way of spirit and mystery is conceivable And truly as the Law of creeping ordain'd against Serpents in the Law of Adam did adde nothing to the reptile nature of Serpents but a condemnation meerly spiritual so the Law of death added nothing to the mortal nature of men except that condemnation of death which in thought and mystery is only conceiv'd Remember says David Psal 89. what is my substance And a little after What man is he that liveth and shall not see death which the Kingly Prophet understood of natural death the causes of which he ascrib'd to the substance and matter of men not to the sin of Adam adde to this what St. Paul hath written Rom. 8. Flesh savours of death and in the 6 Chap. of the same Epistle The wages of sin is death In which he meant natural sin and natural death because natural death is incorporate with natural sin being the sauce of which the flesh rellishes which is the nature and matter of sin Moreover by this distinction of natural and legal sin and natural and legal death easily appears the interpretation of that place of Numbers Chap. 27. where the daughters of Zelopheâ—ad speak unto Moses Our Father dyed in the desert and was not in that sedition which was stirred up against the Lord by Core but died in hâ—s sin They say that their father was dead not in that Judgement wherein Core was swallowed up who rebelled against the Lord but by the sin and fault of his nature which is the seed of sin and corruption and by that fate of nature by which death is the last period of all things subject to corruption They doe not say that he was swallowed up in that just Judgement wherein the lowest earth opened to swallow up those Conspirators but that he dyed a single death in the desert by that same natural Law by which all men owe themselves to death and by which simple natural death abides natural sin CHAP. IV. Men were in the beginning created according to the Image of God and very good Of the Image of God in the first creation Of the Image of God in the second creation Men were created upright in the beginning but of vâ—tious matter which could easily return to its own disposition IT seems not to agree with that which is set down in the 1 of Genesis That I said the Creation of man was evill and corrupt For there it 's said that God did create man according to his own Image and that all things which God created were very good whence Interpreters conclude and rightly that man being created according to Gods own Image was created perfect and upright And if all that God created was very good that man then who was the most excellent of the Creatures was exceeding good To this that I may answer I would first have it granted that the impression of Gods Image in the first creation is different from that in the second creation God expressed in the first Creation that first Image and copie of his wonderful art by which he made the World and all that therein is and by excellent wisdom compos'd and ponder'd them In his renewing which is the second creation God express'd the Image of his own nature wherein he communicated his love and bounty to the Wor'd God in his first creation shewed the out-side of his work but in the second he opened the bowels of his love The first creation expressed the Image of God which we may call the exterior the second creation presents us with the internal Image of God There was nothing besides which God did not communicate in the Image of that plat-form and of his admirable art which he exppress'd in all things which he created But he did not make all things partake of that Image of his nature loâ—e and bounty which be most worthily shewin men when he did regenerate or when he went about to regenerate them Furthermore whatsoever material or corporeal things ar created by the law of their own nature they ar created corruptible and mortal but whatsoever out of things corruptible and material are created a new by the Law of that second creation become incorruptible and immortal To say nothing of other material and corporeal things it is certain that men in the beginning were created according to the Image of God that Image of their Creator which we may call the Image of creation yea they were created according to such an Image of creation which above all other Images of creation is the most excellent amongst all the frames of the creatures which more expresly and more highly represented the Creator But we must confess that men were created at first according to the exteriour Image of God which is called nighest to God at a greater distance in comparison to the Image of the second creation It is true that men were created in the beginning perfect right and excellently good in as farr as men by force and vertue of their creation could be created perfect right and excellently good But no man ought to be ignorant that men were created from the beginning of corruptible matter which might easily be turn'd from perfect to imperfect from right to wrong from good to evil which the men which were first created did evidence by a strong and approved example since the nature of their composition and their own negligence carried them being upright made so far aside Therefore so often as I think of this That men being created according to the Image of God the Creator and according to the Image of the first plat-form perfect right and very good by a fault in them ingrafted by nature did degenerare from righteousness to wickedness from good to evil So often I fancy a Watch newly
dead Not that the sins of men were imputed to men but that by the damage of such things which were profitable to men those errours which they had committed might be more imputed to them so we read that for the sin of men all things that were upon the face of the earth were destroyed from men to beasts as well creeping things as the fowls of heaven Moreover for the wickednesse of the Sodomites both their Towns and themselves were destroy'd What shall I mention that for the wickedness of the Jews their earth was made iron that the heaven became brasse and fires were kindled to burn every tree both dry and green That became common by the mystical imputation of the sin of Adâ—m For the earth was curs'd for the rebellion of Adam The Serpent was accurs'd among all creatures and beasts of the field He was commanded to goe upon his belly and commanded to ear dust all the days of his life and those things which were joyn'd in no societie with Adam endur'd the condemnation of that fault This was the difference betwixt inflicting of punishments in Physical and punishments ordain'd upon the Mystical imputation of the sin of Adam That those punishments were Physical and real according to their Physical and real imputations the other Mystical and spiritually understood according to the spiritual and mystical imputation of the sin of Adam Certainly the sin of Adam added nothing to the sinfull nature of man but a meer guilt which ought mystically to be understood Nor did the punishment ordain'd against him from the imputation of sin add any thing to the corruption and natural condition of men but a mysticall condemnation which could only be imagin'd in the understanding The punishment decreed against the Serpent added nothing to the reptile nature of the Serpent besides a condemnation meerly spiritual and mystical For according to the reptile condition of his nature and his creation the Serpent was to creep upon his belly and to eat dust all the dayes of his life which I shew'd before and thought fit here to rehearse The punishment decreed against the earth to bring forth Thorns and Thistles added nothing to the condition of the earth but the meer imagination of condemnation For the earth is properly called the mother of thorns and thistles The punishment pronounced against men that in the sweat of their brows they should eat their bread added nothing to the natural destinie of men but a bare mysterie of condemnation For a man is born to labour and a fowl to fly And it is as natural for a man to labour as to a fowl to flie And the same is to be thought of the pains of women in child-birth Nor did the condemnation of death pronounced against Adam adde any thing to the natural death by which Adam and all men according to the Law of their creation ought to die besides the mystical condemnation consisting in mysterie and spirit Adam is understood to be dead according to that condemnation and all men are understood to be dead in Adam by that mysterie and mystical way of imputation by which the death of Christ ought to be apply'd to Adam and to all men Nor did Adam really die nor man ever dy'd really by the decree of that condemnation one Christ alone who was the expiation for all sin both ought to doe and did that and dy'd for Adam and all men and repeal by his death that condemnation which was gone out against Adam and all mankind Yea Christ himself who was slain before the world was ordaind and to whom was allotted the task of expiating Adams sin succeeded in Adams place at the very minute when Adam sinn'd and in the place of all men who were esteem'd to sin in Adam And God sustain'd the punishment for Adam and for all men who ought to have dyed for Adam and who from that very minute wherein Adam dy'd were understood dead not really and actually for they could not because they had no being as yet but by the force of mysterie and that mystical imputation which was in force after the death of Christ and before the death of Christ upon men not as yet born CHAP. IV. The imputation of another mans sin is not conceivable but by some supposition in Law Adams sin was imputed to all men in a spiritual manner not by natural propagation Divines confuse nature and guilt which ought to be understood apart in original sin Nature is before guilt Guilt did not corrupt nature yea on the contrary corrupt nature caus'd guilt Which is prov'd by the example of Adam when he sinn'd IT is a most certain truth of which no Orthodox Divine makes any question That God in a secret way and by a marvellous mysterie imputed to all men the sin of one man And that all mankind had a being in one man not truly and properly but mystically which is so to be understood by a certain presupposition in the Law of God according to the words of no ordinary Divine The whole nature of man sayes he was in one man Adam as in the head And all we not truly and properly for that time truly and properly we were not in being but potentially and virtually or by a certain supposition in Gods Law in the act of Adam broke the Law of God and transgressed his Covenant as sayes the Scriture And truly if we take diligent heed there is no imputation from anothers fault whether Physical Political or Mystical or any other kinde which is any other than imaginary or can any other way be conceived than by imagination which is chiefly to be thought of mystical imputations which are lesse corporeal and more spiritual and therefore more apt for fiction That is according to imputation mystical which the Apostle says Rom. 2. That uncircumcision is reputed to them that keep the Law for circumcision But how could the uncircumcised be thought circumcised but by that supposition which being corporeal is conceived in spirit and thought The sin of Adam was made the sin of all men by imputation and that same supposition of mystery by which all men that are that were that shall be are imagined to have plucked that forbidden fruit with their own hands at the same time when Adam did snatch it and to have eaten it at the same time when Adam swallowed it and by which supposition the numerical sin of Adam is thought to be numerically the sin of all men he in whom all men are thought to have been in him all men are said to have sinn'd and so have deserved death Nor were all men really and actually in Adam nor are they to be thought to have sinn'd really and actually nor did they really and naturally deserve death by that sin but by force of mystery which I have often repeated interpretatively and imputatively as the Divine says which was meerly by supposition And since these things are undoubted and believed firmly I see nothing that
Law which was not imputed because sin is not imputed where there is no Law And there was first an inbred corruption in Adam before that imputation which was caus'd by the transgression of that Law Therefore the imputation of sin was the Mother of his inbred corruption which begat the imputation of sin Sin naturally inherent ought to be first before sin which was imputed as nature was before imputation or mystery As also sin naturally inherent was not imputed according to Law there being no Law nor was there any legal guilt by that sin for guilt and imputation are the same things Nor could it be said that under the Law legal imputation and imbred corruption were indivisibly joyn'd and made up but one guilt of two Under the Law legal imputation of Adams sin and imbred corruption joyn'd But therefore were not so indivisibly closely joyn'd that they made the least confusion of guilts for there was never any guilt of anothers sin by imbred corruption The legal imputation of Adams guilt flow'd from the transgression of the Law by Adam which passed upon all men from imbred corruption flow'd sin naturally inherent not anothers sin but every mans own sin proper and particular to himself which is not imputed by the Law and by the adventitious sin of Adam but the very nature of the sin inherent from ones imbred corruption is naturally ascribed to all men that they may undergo death which is according to nature nor attain to immortality which is above nature CHAP. V. Those who think that the imputation of Adams sin was ingendred by traduction from Adam do gather it from thence in that they believe that Adam was the Father of all men The Apostle hath distinguish'd and not joyn'd sin naturally inherent and that which is imputed He hath distinguished and not joyn'd natural death with that which is inflicted by the Law Death which was by the sin of Adam began with Adam and ended with Moses and Christ Natural sin and natural death were before Adam and shall be after Moses and Christ to the end of all time ONe opinion as it is usual is begotten by another They who think that men took their Original first from Adam because it is no opinion but a reality that the first imputation of all sin sprung from Adam believe likewise that innate corruption and the imputation of sin were so indivisibly joyn'd in one man that that imputation could no other ways passe upon all men but by way of propagation the original of which they bring from Adam who first sinn'd and the act of which sin say they was in all men by imputation and the quality of the sin really inherent since that act which was not to interpret the matter but entangle it not to unrevel it but tie faster Furthermore this opinion as I said thence took its beginning because Adam is thought the Original of all men And that opinion again hence is imagin'd because they think that Moses spoke of Adam as the first Father of all men because there is no other man named in Moses Books before Adam as if there never had been nothing in nature nor in the world which Moses had not mention'd But Moses tels us no where that which St. Paul first declar'd That sin enter'd into the world by the sin of Adam and that death by that sin pass'd upon all men although Moses said no such thing yet he no where denyed it And no where hath he said that which St. Paul expresly declares That sin was in the world until the Law or before the Law which is the same thing I say that first and first-born Law as the best Divines call it and which is here to be understood as being the first of all Laws which God gave to Adam and from which proceeded the imputation of sin Nor did Moses deny that which Paul affirmed Therefore it is better to assert it since the Apostle affirms Moses does not deny it that there were men before Adam As it was never the intention of the Apostle to derive the original of all men from Adam so also the Apostle never intended so to joyn sin naturally inherent with sin imputed and certainly it is as clear as Noon-day That the Apostle never made any mixtures of these sins Rom. 5 where he manifestly writes concerning the sin which in Adam was imputed By one man sayes he sin entred into the world That by one man St. Paul afterwards explains not by traduction from one man and natural propagation but by his disobedience which is moral and spiritual By the disobedience says he of one man many became sinners He did not then joyn that which is moral and spiritual with that which is material and naturally propagated But that man by whom sin entred into the world is without doubt Adam whose sin was the sin of the whole world The sin I say which by the transgression of the Law was imputed to the whole world The Apostle adds in pursute of his argument Till the Law sin was in the world that is till that man Adam sin was in the world At the same time as sin enter'd into the world through the Law by Adams sin there was another 〈◊〉 in the world as the Apostle witnesses 〈…〉 and Adam which is the same thing Not the sin which was imputed by transgression of the Law but sin which was naturally inherent and was not imput dâ—whilst there was no Law Nor did the Apostle joyn â—n which was before the Law with that which was after the Law and had its original from the Law which in this Chapter he only hâ—ndles By one man sin extord â—nto the world and by sin death the Apostle adds in that place Where observe the death which the Apostle here meanâ— is not intended the natural death which was deeply rooted in the bowels of meir by innate corruption and by the depraving of his â—â—â—ation but the spiritual and mystical death is here to be understood which follow'd the spiritual and mystical imputation of Adams sin Which that you may the more clearly know remember what I said before That no man ever dyed for the sin of Adam but one Christ alone in whom according to mystical imputation all men are thought dead as all men are thought to have sinn'd in Adam They are I say thought dead in Christ by similitude parable and fiction mystically as Isaac was supposed kill'd by his father as before out of the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews That death then of which here the Apostle speaks was mystical fictitious and Parabolical which ensued upon Adams mystical fictitious Parabolical sin Which death no man ever actually suffer'd in Christ as no man actually or really ever sinn'd in Adam The Apostle spoke in this place not of that sin which was naturally inherent to all men but only of that which by mystical imputation pass'd upon all men from the sin of Adam The Apostle spoke likewise
should be imputed to any one but his own It remains then that all men have committed the sin of Adam according to similitude if not actually And indeed because there is nothing in the world which is not either the thing actually or the similitude of it which is the image of reality Nor could there be any lawfull imputation from the sin of another but by that supposition by which he who is put in place of the sinner is thought to be transform'd into his image and similitude and to have sinn'd that by similitude which the other sinn'd actually so that for the similitude such punishments may be laid upon the personater of the guilty person as were ordained for himself This the Apostle maintains to have happen'd to all men and to have sinn'd as Adam sinn'd and to have suffer'd the same death which Adam suffer'd for his sin By one man sayes he sin entred into the world and by sin death I say he would have all men turn'd into the image and similitude of the transgression of Adam that they might all be thought to have sinn'd according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam and the like death reign'd over them which reign'd over him for the similitude of his transgression And the Apostle that none might be freed from the death of this punishment adds That death reign'd from Adam upon those also who had not sinn'd according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam For it was known before that the sin of Adam had passed upon all men which had been born since the framing of Adam and should be born afterwards and that death reign'd from him upon his posterity But that he might comprehend all men in the sin of Adam whose roots reached as far from Adam to the foregoing ages as their branches reached from Adam to the future ages and the times after Adam It was the meaning of the Apostle that the sin of Adam was indifferently imputed to all men before and since and that death reign'd from him upon those that were past and those that were to come A wonderful but no singular mystery For the faith of Abraham was imputed by the same mystery to all the faithful both born before Abraham from all eternity and who were born after Abraham and shall be born to all eternity in which sense Abraham is called the father of the Faithfull of those that are past and are also to come To these add what I have said of the imputation of the death of Christ That the death of Christ was not only imputed to all men born after Christ but past back upon all those likewise born before Christ And as it was fit it should be so likewise the manner of the mystical imputation perswades us that it was so spiritually I mean and by way of conception according to which mystical imputation takes hold of men For as Lightning breaking out of a cloud enlightens with one flash things above it and things below it So the imputation that broke out of the sin of Adam darted one and the same lightning upon all men those that were born after Adam and those that were born before him And the same manner of mysterie which may teach us that the death of Adam pass'd upon all men that were not born many ages after Adam will teach us that death could reign backward upon those that were born before him never so long For the manner of imputation is alike for the time past and for the time to come Nor is there any new miracle to be sought for that sin should be imputed to men created before Adam if it be believ'd to be imputed to men created after Adam Let us as far as we conceive view all men from the beginning to the end And at last you will confess that no other could sin but according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam but only those that were begotten and born before Adam For it is certain that all men after Adam and their sons and who shall also be by them begotten did sinn according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam What kind of men must those be I beseech ye who did not sin according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam Certainly it must be those who were born before Adam because the Apostle sayes manifestly they sinn'd before the Law Rom. 5. And to whom before the Law and Adam their sin was not imputed because sin is not imputed when the Law is not And therefore they neither sinn'd nor could sin according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam To make the difference betwixt them and all the posterity of Adam who sinn'd after the Law because after Adam to whom the sin of Adam was imputed because sin began to be imputed from the Law and from Adam and who could sin only according to this real similitude of the transgression of Adam of which we here speak and which no doubt the Apostle meant Let famous men pardon me that have expounded St. Paul upon this place if I tell them that those things which they speake concerning children here are inconsistent whom they would have here to be the persons meant who sinn'd not according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam because they sinn'd not actually as Adam did Yea if they had sinn'd actually they had not sinn'd according to similitude because act is the reality of a thing no similitude And in that very regard because infants sinned not actually they must needs sin according to similitude But the mixture of those natural sins of Adam deceiv'd those most famous men which were inherent to him together with that legall sin which passed upon all men For they imagin'd that children sinn'd not according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam because they sinn'd not actually as Adam sinn'd As for example Because they kill'd not actually as Adam kill'd or might have kill'd because they committed not adultery actually as Adam did or might have done because they stole not actually as Adam stole or might have stollen and so of the rest of Adams natural sins But here there was no intention concerning the similitude of all his natural sins but only of the similitude of his disobedience Into which disobedience no man nor no child could ever fall actually The Apostle said not Who had not sinn'd according to the similitude of Adams sins Nay that only Who had not sinned according to the similitude of Adams transgaession For here he intended nothing concerning all the sins of Adam and those natural sins of Adam which only concern'd himself but of that one transgression that passed upon all men All I say both of age and under age as all men are indifferently comprehended in the species and in regard that old and young and men of all ages sinned in spirit and mysterie not naturally and materially according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam For although
A THEOLOGICAL SYSTEME Upon that PRESVPPOSITION That MEN were before ADAM The first PART LONDON Printed in the Year 1655. THE PROEME IT is a natural suspition that the beginning of the world is not to be receiv'd according to that common beginning which is pitched in Adam inherent in all men who have but an ordinary knowledge in things For that beginning seems enquirable at a â—ar greater distance and from ages past very long before both by the most ancient accounts of the Chaldaeans as also by the most ancient Records of the Aegyptians Aethiopians and Scythians and by parts of the frame of the world newly discovered as also from those unknown Countries to which the Hollandeâ—s have sayled of late the men of which as is probable did not descend from Adam I had this suspition also being a Child when I heard or read the History of Genesis Where Cain goes forth where he kiâ—ls his brother when they were in the fields doing it warily like a thief least it should be discovered by any Where he flies where he fears punishment for the death of his Brother Lastly where he marries a a wife far from his Ancestors and builds a City Yet although I had this doubt in my mind yet durst I not speak any thing of it which did not rellish of that received opinion concerning Adam created first of all men till I met with the 12 13 14 verses of the 5 ch of the Epist of St. Paul to the Rom. which I have in hand and consider of now twenty years or thereabouts And as he who goes upon Ice goes warily where he cracks it being not well frozen or tender but where he finds it frozen and well hardned waâ—ks boldly So I dreaded first least this doubtfull dispute might either cuâ— my soles or throw me headlong into some deep Heresie if I should insist upon it But so soon as I knew by these verses of the Apostle that sin was in the world before it was imputed and when I knew and that certainly that sin began from Adam to be imputed I took heart and found all this dispute so solid that I pasâ—'d through it with lesse fear I found men who beyond that imputation of sin which had its original from Adam had indeed sinned but their sin was not imputed to them according to the similitude of Adam to whom first of all sin was imputed and so imputed that it was â—eputed a crime to him and to all men and turned to death But as the nature is of things that are firm in themselves the firmnesse of this Tenent appeared to me to be such that the more questions of Divinity I did turn it to and those the greater and most difficult so much the purer greater and solid Christian Religion shined forth to me Such as to Heaven So great as there she seems A tryal of which I put forth in that Essay which for that purpose I did compose for the clearing of those verses of the Apostle Nor considering the bulk of the work could I then make an end Now I intend still by way of Essay to open the body of Divinity it self by which the Doctrine of the Gospel upon presupposition of men before Adam may be laid open more at large and that it may appear that this Tenet is no ways disadvantagious to our faith which is in Christ nay that it unrevelled it from a great many niceties with which it 's entangled and does almost in every place make it clearer to our eyes and minds Which I promise without boasting Whether I do it and bring it to passe let the courteous Reader judge I doe not doubt but a great many persons who shall see the title and the intention of this book not reading the work it self with tongue and hand will streight fall upon this work as a new thing and streight draw their pens to fall upon that which they have not understood To all whom I now answer That whatsoe'r they write I shall not answer them But if there be any more calm and wise as I hope there will be a great many such who shall refrain themselves And if there be any thing in my writings which after diligent perusal shall offend them and shall admonish me in a civil and Christian way I shall yeeld my self wholly to them and affording them all respect shall endeavour to satisfie them But this especially and most exactly I promise If any man in a known case shall shew me my error that is to say that I contradict the History of Genesis in the least or any other place of the holy and Orthodox scripture which are contained in both the Testaments or step aside from them a nails breadth or from any head of Christian faith First I shall thank him for his teaching of me then I shall not be ashamed to set down my name nay I shall think it my greatest credit to fill it with capital letter in confessing my fault which I detest if any such I have committed For although I am my own greatest friend yet truth's more dear to me which I only professe My name I do not now mention for modesties sake not as conscious of any evil action For I fear lest I should abuse so noble a subject by the slendernesse of my Treatise and lest all which I shall study or frame upon such high matter should be far inferiour But let them account which know me what and how great have been my tossings up and down these thirty years and what chances have drawn me in that time forward and backward So that more by meditation than reading and serious study as was needfull I have at last finisht this ill compos'd and undigested work Therefore I intreat my Reader he will be pleased to take this beginning howsoever in good part The Contents of the Chapters in the first Book CHAP. I. THe verses of the Apostle Original sin in them is chiefly handled The Law there meant is the Law of Adam not the Law of Moses Of sin natural and legal imputed and not imputed As also of Death natural and legal Humane Laws were appointed for the governing of right reason They are bounded by men The Laws of God are above men Pag. 1 II. The natural sins of men are the very defaults of humane nature the causes of which are not to be ascribed to the sins of Adam Legal sin imputed to men by the sin of Adam is additional Conceiv'd spiritually and not propagated naturally 7 III. The natural death of meâ—arises from the nature of man which is mortal nor is caus'd by the condemnation of death decreed against Adam Which is the legal death And is meant spiritually not naturally 12 IV. Men were in the beginning created according to the Image of God and very good Of the Image of God in the first creation Of the Image of God in the second creation Men were created upright in the beginning but of vitious matter
complaint of the Elect in the Scripture as it were accusing God that he shews all his power to heap prosperity upon the wicked that all things goe well with them that things which they wish for come to pass beyond their hopes and that no disasters blast their pleasures and their joyes Likewise the most excellent Poet falls out with his gods because his Mistress having sworn by them being perjur'd kept the same face which she had before that she being perjur'd had as long hair as before that she had the same Roses in her cheeks the same neat foot the same fair and clear eyes after she had injur'd the gods as she had before she swore Nay after she had tyed her self by so many execrations she became fairer and fairer And certainly the supposition of the Roman Law granted a great many who were prisoners with the Enemy dead in a civil sense who were notwithstanding in good health Therefore it is apparent that neither suppositions of Law nor intentions of mysterie could any jot indammage nature nor that the imputation of Adams sin which is altogether mystical and spiritual was the cause of Plagues Fevers and other diseases which Nature causes in men but that they happen by reason of vitious matter and the frame of their creation which is subject to corruption CHAP. III. The natural death of men arises from the nature of man which is mortal nor is caus'd by the condemnation of death decreed against Adam which is the legal death and is meant spiritually not naturally ANd it is the fashion of all Inconveniences that one draws another there are not those wanting who affirm That if Adam had not sinn'd men should never have dyed as if immortality which is aeternal life and which onely a new Creation could beget as only having the power of immortality in it could have been bestowed upon men by the force and vertue of the first Creation which by its nature is subject to corruption and death and that men should not have dyed who as the Schools say are naturally corruptible and were created mortal Nay say they God said to Adam Eat not of the tree of good and evil for on that day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death Therefore gather they If death was given as a punnishment to Adam on that day wherein he transgressed the Law of God Adam should have never dyed if he had never sinn'd But that consequence is utterly denied for although they die which kill therefore they which do not kill are not immortal Those that are guilty and not guilty of blood come to a certain end by death This is the difference 'twixt both their deaths that those that are upright 〈◊〉 of good life die simply naturally those that dye by order of Law are said to dye a two-fold death naturally and legally a natural death and that which is can'd legal and civil by the condemnation of the Law Truly whether a man by the sentence of the Judge be strangled or be beheaded or dye upon the rack he is first to be thought dead a natural death as being dead by natural causes as stopping or cutting the passages of his breath Again because to this nature a condemnation by Law is added he is said for the way of his death to have dyed a second and a civil death The same is to be thought to have happened to Adam being condemned by the Law of God which happen'd to other men condemned by the Laws of men Adam should have dyed a natural death and by a cause meerly natural since he was made up of matter corruptible and mortal Adam dyed likewise a legal death by the condemnation of the Law at which time he broke the Law of God The natural death of Adam followed the natural sin of Adam and the infirmity of his corruption springing from the corruptible matter whereof he was made Legal sin made the legal death of Adam There was a mystical cause of that mystical effect which only could be conceiv'd by spirit and reason This shall be evidently prov'd by Adam himself God had said to Adam Whatsoever day then eatest thou shalt die the death Therefore Adam is thought to have died the very same day the very same minute wherein he transgressed the Law of God And yet Adam died neither naturally nor bodily that minute or that day For we know that he liv'd Nine hundred years after he sinned Therefore we shall understand that Adam dyed when he transgressed the Law of God a legal and a spiritual death which only could be conceiv'd in thought Adam dyed a legal spiritual death when he transgressed the Law of God Adam died a natural and a corporeal death when he had liv'd Nine hundred and thirty years and in that set hour where the natural bounds of his life was fixed But we shall more easily understand that Adam dyed the death and that a spiritual death was added to his natural if we review other condemnations decreed by God both against Adam and against Eve and against the Serpent after and for the transgression of Adam This punishment was decreed for Adam after his sin In labour shalt thou eat of the earth all the dayes of thy life But God had plac'd Adam before he sinned in Paradise that he might cultivate it Therefore that he might labour and manure the ground in Paradise before he sinn'd and that by his labour he might eat of it as he did labour and manure it and by his labour did eat of it after his sinne Observe here labour both before and after sin Labours before sin according to the nature of agriculture natural labours after sin by a mystical condemnation which only could be conceived in thought Such is that which the Lord said to Eve I will multiply thy sorrows and thou shalt bring forth with pain and shalt be in the power of thy husband and he shall be Lord over thee The Lord multiplyed the sorrows of the woman when according to the condemnation he added spiritual and mystical griefs to those which were natural by which a woman is naturally torn when she brings forth God multiplyed the subjection of the woman under the power of her husband when he added the condemnation by Law to that natural Law by which the nobler sex hath dominion over the inferiour But chiefly its worth taking notice of what God decreed against the Serpent and what punishment he appointed for him for tempting Eve with eating of the forbidden fruit Because thou hast done this saith the Lord to the Serpent thou shalt goe upon thy belly and shalt eat dust all the dayes of thy life but this was naturally in the Serpent at his creation to creep and crawl that the Serpent should goe upon his belly and eat the dust for God before sin nay the fifth day of the Creation created all manner of creeping things of which sort was the Serpent and chief of them
which should be the glory of the earth The Lord would have his people encreased to a full and sufficient number of inhabitants which should be able to defend themselves from the beasts of Canaan and secure the people But if God had a double caution in this case for the comliness and security of the Land of Canaan alone although the Jews then abounded in number and were grown to be many hundred thousands What care shall we think God took in the Creation of the World for the comliness not onely of one Land but also of the Lands of the whole World lest they should be made desolate if he had created one man and one Woman from the beginning in the earth And if God would not expose many hundred thousand Jews to the beasts of one Land shall we think that he would expose one single man and woman to the heasts of all Lands Certainly if the beasts of the Land of Canaan had been so much multiplied against so many hundred thousand Jews that dwelt in 't much more should they have been multiplied against Adam and Eve being alone upon the whole earth CHAP. II. Adam was created apart from other men in that creation which is mentioned Gen. 2. Adam was thefirst and father of the Jews not of all men The framing of Adam was altogether different from the creation of the first men Eve could not be created the same day as Adam was made THe author of Genesis having absolâ—'d in the first Chapter the six dayes of the creation begins the second Chapter from the sanctification of the Sabbath which was the seventh day and rehearses what he had said in the first Chapter of the creation of the whole of which there was no more to be related But because the nation of the Jews was separate and set apart from all the Nations of the earth being elected by God That it might be to him a peculiar people of all the nations upon the earth which we prov'd our of the 7 of Deut Therefore the author of the Pentateuch who was himself a Jew whose end it was to write the original the deduction the Laws and Chronologie of his own Nation apart from the creation of the whole world and of all Nations begins the particular framing of the first Jew from whom that peculiar and choice Nation was deriv'd that is of them by whom salvation should be communicated to all Nations in Christ as to all Nations had come perdition from Adam And God fram'd Adam Gen. 2. Man that is Adam But because this Narration begins with and it is ordinarily received as a more special explanation of the creation of that man in his kind of whom Moses spake in the Ch. 1. Let us make man But they heed not that the particle and in the Hebrew is the introduction of a new matter not a continuation of that which was mention'd before such beginnings of Narrations you shall every where meet with in sacred authors yea books beginning with and as Ezechiâ—l And it came to pass in the thirtieth year And Jonas 〈◊〉 the word of the Lord came to Jonas Hence is it chiefly prefum'd that this framing of Adam was not that which is mentioned in the former Chapter of Gen. Because it is granted by all that â—haâ— first creation in the first Chapter which accoring to my supposition was the creation of the first men was compleated mone day the sixth and the last as is set down in the first Chapter But it is impossble that all those things which are set down in the second Chapter could have been transacted in that time which is receiv'd from morning to evening Therefore much lesse in the half of that sixth day in which God first oreated all creatnres then man Let us tell every minute in which God was pleased to declare that all his works were perform'd with time though he could have done them without time We shal find no such thing in the first creation of men nor the action of the creation of male and female interrupted as it is a long space betwixt the forming of Adam and Eve It is first said That God created Adam of the clay of the earth Where observe that God who in the first Chapter created man not simply of the earth but of that first matter of which he made the earth in this second Chapter fram'd Adam of the dust of the earth Observe that God I say who was in the first Chapter the Creator of man was in the second the framer of Adam For which cause God is also the framer of the Jews Isa 45. Thus says the Lord the holy One of Israel his maker The maker of Israel because the maker of Adam the first Father of Israel But of this enough already Secondly it is said That God breath'd upon the face of Adam the breath of life Thirdly He led him into Paradise Take good notice of these words of Genesis God had planted from the beginning a Paâ— adise of pleasure wherein to place man Understand by that beginning not of that time in which God made Adam but of that beginning long before which is spoken from the beginning of the first Chapter of Genesis In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth In which he likewise created men in their kind who from the beginning did inhabite that earth Certainly if this Adam had been he who was created in the beginning three dayes after the earth was created Genesis had not spoken of this Adam whom the Lord carryed into Paradise God had planted Paradise from the beginning Nay rather upon the third day he made Paradise for the third day dry land appeared and Paradise was planted and the sixth day man was created in his kind Fourthly it is written that God gave this Adam laws what he should eat what he should not eat what he should doe what he should shun Observe here narrowly no Law given to the men of the first creation which is related in the first Chapter of Genesis and no tree forbidden them And God said Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon earth and all trees which have in them their seed according to their kind that it may be to you for meat The tree of knowledge of good and evil was forbidden Adam the first man of the second creation which is mentioned in the second Chapter Thou mayest eat of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat For in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt dye the death But those being divers ordinances argue different times Fifthly the Scripture stammeringly shews us That God had learn'd as it were by experience in a certain time passed That Adam being without a helper had neither till'd nor conveniently kept the Garden Therefore God said It is not convenient that man should be alone Let us make him a helper like unto himself Sixthly God
the forms of men and change them into new creatures Which could not be done but by mysterie by the vertue of which they might be thought dead in Christ whose bloud had sprinkled them and as the Dyers of red colours such garments as they intend of a crimson or scarlet dye they first work them rub them and stain them with woad that they may prepare a convenient reception for red colour that fastens to the woad which is the ground of it So it behov'd men by the imputation of Adami sin first of all as it were with woad or the first ground be wrought drench'd that they might more fully suck up the bloud of Christ and after the second colouring be of a more perfect dye Therefore the imputation of Adams sin was a preparative for the susception of justice which flow'd from the bloud of Christ by which preparation all men thirsting might more earnestly seize upon his justification and receive it inwardly And as scarlet dye added to the wool drenched in takes away the stain of the woad and extinguishes the woad it self so likewise the blood of Christ cast upon the ground of Adams imputation took away the imputation of sin and utterly extinguish'd the sin it self so that by the death of Christ there is no imputation of that sin Sin was before the Law but it was not imputed when there was no Law Ro. 5 For the strength of sin is the Law Cor. 1. Chap. 15. The Law adds strength and force to sin and so has doubled sin and of sin simply so call'd made a sin imputable by Law Christ took away that imputation by Law and the Law it self The Revelation tells us of a Beast with many heads whose one head was wounded as it were to death the rest of his heads remaining but his wounds unto death was cured Sin was the two-headed beast whose one head was before the Law the other after the Law Christ dying cut off that head of sin which was after the Law and that wound unto death was not cured for that head was quite cut off and pluck'd from its neck After the death of Christ there is another head which was before the Law That sin is extinguished in the death of Christ which was imputed to Adam and in him to all men by violation of the Law which sin I call legal Since the death of Christ that sin remains which was not imputed whilst the Law was not which naturally before the Law was inherent to all which I now call natural Christ then restor'd men to that condition wherein Adam had found them into the condion of sin not imputed by the Law and men became after the destruction of that Law the very same thing before the Law was given to Adam for another mans sin is not imputed to any since the death of Christ but every one bears his own sin It is not now said as under the Gospel The faithers have eaten a sowr grape and the childrens teeth are set on edge Jer. 31. Every one dies not for the sin of Adam but every one for his own sin Every one gives an account of himself to God Rom. 14. Of himself not of Adam of his sowr sin in his own behalf not of the strong sin of Adam which diligently observe Every one carries his own burthen Galat. 6. And every one obtains what he does in his own body Cor. 2. chap. 5. God under the Gospel judges the secrets of men Rom. 2. The secrets of men that is their proper faults their belov'd vices every ones own sin and no mans else imputed to them Since the death of Christ God imputes not sins done against the Law but ascribes to all men their natural sins which are not in the Law but in the flesh and which reap corruption according to the nature of corrupt flesh which savour of death in whom goodnesse dwells not but on the contrary evil cleaves to them and who not in regard of the Law but in regard of their corrupt and mortal nature can not possess the immortal and incorruptible kingdom of God The old Adam is crucified with Christ and our old legal man but our old natural man lives in us which is really ours and is not dead in the death of Christ but shall by the vertue of his resurrection sometimes be extinguished whâ—n God shall cloath us with full sanctification which shall be our full and perfect restoring and resurrection At which time our last enemy Death shall be destroy'd I saâ— natural death the reward of natural sin which so long as natural sin is in force is alwayes in men which also when the natural sin is extinguished tinguished must also be extinguished But in the mean time let it be our business continually to be in exercise of godliness and endeavouring of our sanctification that the old sin which adheres to our flesh may be extinguish'd and the justification of Christ may be reveal'd in us from faith to faith as it is written in the first of the Romans that is from sanctification to sanctification For sanctification is our true and solid faith in the concrete here meant by the Apostle not that idle and empty faith which some do urge in the abstract Let us not therefore sin because we are no more confin'd by the Law of Adam or by any punishment of death decreed since the Law of Adam after Christs death but because really and according to the nature of the business we barricado our way to eternal life and to the sight and glory of God if we indulge matter and our flesh and extinguish not sin bred in us No thought of cruelty then as to the Law of God nothing dissonant or inconvenient shall arise in our thoughts by the imputation of that legal sin of Adam which ensued upon that transgression if all this business according to my supposition be taken as a mystical institution that it might prepare a fit ground for the reception of the justice of Christ which is the sanctification and salvation of men and their chief happiness for according to this mystery any thing which might have seem'd in God cruel against mankind seems rather to have been design'd for the salvation of man CHAP. VII Why Adam who sinn'd in the nature of a head was not likewise punish'd in the nature of the head The sin of Adam was disobedience Natural and Legal sin was the two-fold barricado against men to shut them out of Paradise Christ dying broke the barr of the Law Christ rising again and sanctifying us shall also break the natural sin EXaminers use to be more severe in the punishing of the actor than in the punishing of the complices and partakers which all Lawes teach us both natural civil and Law of Nations Nor needs this any proof for it is already so often prov'd that it would be clouded to cite all proofs Only that Law held not in Adam who although he sinn'd as the
head yet he was not punish'd as the head for his sin For if all sin and wickedness all feavers and plagues and eternal death it self as it is believ'd enterd into the world and pass'd upon all men Why was not Adam readiest to sin amongst all men being the head and cause of all sins by reason of his transgression Why was not he seized himself with troops and companies of all manner of plagues and fevers And why was not that author of eternal death himself given to eternal death Yea why did Adam if we will except his single transgression become famous for no other sin Yea why did he enjoy his health so well Why enjoyd he a long life nine hundred and thirty years Why has none of the Divines sent him to Hell that amongst the torments of the wicked and the damned he might be punisht with eternal death But if on the contrary no man was ever partaker or conscious with Adam of Adams sin yea if all men were purer from that sin then Children are free from sin as being not born when Adam dam sinn'd What was the reason thar men should become more wicked by that sin than Adam himself For it is certain that a great many men have been thought more famous for the sin of Adam then Adam himself were sore handled their life short and sickly and at last thrown down to hell there to die an eternal death This darkness from my supposition I will make as clear as day if we consider the sin of Adam either against the Law which was a legal sin or by default of his Nature subject to corruption which is a natural sin If we consider Adam sining by a legal sin or against the Law which is the same thing we shall conceive him not only as to himself but also in regard of all men and to all mankind whom he did represent by force and virtue of which representation he deserved the imputation of that sin to himself and all Mankind For as an Ambassadour who yeilds up a people to a conquering Prince in the name of his Country does not only bind in his rendition himself but all the people of the City whom the Ambassadour represents So Adam in regard that he did represent all mankind did not only bind himself but all mankind to the decree which went out against his sin and made them and himself partakers of the same sin And as in the businesse of rendition which the Ambassadour does in the behalf of his Country all are equally obliged to the Laws of it as well the Ambassadour as all men of the Country Just so in the businesse of Adams sin all mankind did equally fall into the imputation And as this rendition according to the School men is neither lesse nor more in one than another nor of all those that are yeilded none is more engaged to it than another Iust so the imputation of the sin of Adam admits not of a more or a lesse nor can the sin of Adam be thought to be imputed more or lesse to any man that ever was or is or shall be And Lucans expression might be very fit in this case It stains and equals all Yea Adam and all men that ever were made or shall be have suffered alike for that sin for all have equally endured the condemnation of death decreed against that sin and all those men were thought to be dead alike according to that legal spiritual and mystical death which ensued upon that legal spiritual and mystical sin If we consider Adam sinning in the default of his Nature given to corruption which is natural sin then we shall conceive him in regard of himself not in regard of all men And in that regard the more that Adam sinn'd to himself in that natural sin he gain'd himself more natural evil and punishment and so had fall'n into more grievous diseases And indeed because natural sin is receptive of more or lesse according to mans nature more or lesse corrupt as likewise all natural punishments admit of more or lesse and all natural evils which ensue upon that natural sin And as Adam beyond all other men was of a lesse corrupt nature by the prerogative of his creation which he had from God himself so sinn'd he lesse than other men in natural sin And was lesse punished for his natural sin and suffered fewer evils than other men suffered yea fewer than they for the self same sin now suffer Let us examine this businesse on the right ballance of reason that it may appear beyond all controversie that the sins of all men and all those evils and plagues which punish men and their eternal death which hinders them from eternal life to have flow'd from the fault of their own nature inherent to them and not from the sin of Adam Whence I pray that thirst of blood by which one man is a wild beast to another one man kills another is it not from black choler with which mans liver swells whence all those incestuous marriages contrary to Law whence unlawfull venerie and those wild lusts by which men run upon beasts rashly not from perverse and corrupt lust which is the itch of perverse and corrupt nature whence rapine and theft whence war and strife amongst you says St. James in his 4 Chapter of his Epistle are they not from your lusts And hence we chiefly gather that such vices are altogether tyed and addicted to the substance of men since the same substance is to men and beast and men and beast have the same vices Hence it is they call murtherers cruel persons Tigers Bears Lions Lustfull persons Goats Backbiters Dogs Thieves Kites and Eagles tallons Belly-gods hogs c. Because we believe that the sin of Adam was imputed to beasts and engendred such vices also in them Whence is it likewise that men have their health so that they are girt with the spleen as with a girdle whence have they the Kings evil whence bleer'd eyes their guts ake the roots of their hearts are perished whence have they these continual uncertain or Periodical Fevers whence so many sorts of the Gout and either the stone or gravel in the Kidneys which occasions a strangurie and other several sorts of diseases by which mens bodies are tormented are they not from the ill dispositions of mens bodies which are higher or lesse grievous in humane bodies as the badnesse of their affections is either lightned or remitted But certainly varieties of sins or health which make men either ill or diseased do plainly shew that all this vitiousness springs from our nature and from the substance of men which as it is diversly affected to divers by either lesse or more it is corrupted and troubled Neither could the legal sin of Adam ever bring any such thing to passe For it is but one and not vicious and passed not upon men either more intense or more remiss but made all men alike guilty and had made all
men alike evil and alike bad and had put all men in the same kind and condition for sin and death if the sins and diseases of men had taken their originals from that one and one kind of sin It is objected to this that Adam when he transgressed the Law did sin naturally for he naturally desired the forbidden fruit and naturally did eat of it Therefore the sin of Adam was natural not legal only And therefore not only by mystical and spiritual imputation but by Nature also and traduction from Adam it passed upon all men I answer that Adam did not therefore sin because he naturally desired the fruit and naturally did eat it but because he desired it against Gods command and eat it contrary to his Law The Apostle calls the sin of Adam disobedience moral not natural or as there was a formality not a materiality in that sin I say a formality morality and mystery which alone was imputed to Adam and to all men and for which he gained death to himself and to all men The nature and materiality of that sin was properly no sin For of it self and naturally it was no sin to covet and eat that fruit which was fair to the eye and good to eat as Moses witnesses of it The force of that sin consisted only in the transgression and disobedience of Adam which was the formality and morality of that sin Besides that sin was two manner of ways imputed to Adam Either in that by his corrupt mind and will he transgressed the Law of God or in so much as corporally or by eating he broke it In so far as Adam by his corrupted mind and will broke the Law which was the formality and the spirituality of his sin he deserv'd that condemnation ordained by the Law of God so dyed the death a moral and a spiritual death which Christ really and in his body suffered for Adam In so far as Adam in his body transgressed he was in his body thrust out of Paradise lest perhaps says Genesis he should put out his hand and take the tred of life and live for ever Both these happened to Adam by this transgression death and thrusting out of Paradise but both significatively parabolically and by similitude All men dyed by the sin of Adam by the same spiritual and mystical death by which Adam dyed All men were thrown out of Paradise not actually and corporally as Adam was but significatively and mystically The nature of Man corrupt and subject to death debarr'd men of the Paradise of God which is eternal life The Law given to Adam did double barricado the way to this Paradise and added strength to that sin as says the second Epistle to the Corinthians which that sin brought to passe making it exceeding sinfull as the Epistle to the Rom. speaks And man had two stops to eternal life the default of his nature and the rigour of Gods Law which was drawn and offered the sharp edge to all that should offer to enter into Paradise The nature of men given to corruption was the first and material stop their own impediment which hindered mans entrance into immortality The Law violated by Adam was the second and the spiritual hindrance not an innate but an impediment by another which shut up Paradise and which not naturally nor by traduction from Adam but which by imputation spirit and meer fiction of divine mysteries was objected to all men that upon the same account they might lose eternal life Christ dying for us took away the second spiritual hindrance which by Adams sin was against us The first natural and material stop yet remains and shall be removed by Christ also when he shall arise again and sanctifie us All that are dead and are mortal are thrown out of Paradise and shut out of eternal life by the sin of Adam mystically and parabolically that by the resurrection of the same Christ they might enter into the same Paradise and enjoy eternal life not mystically nor Parabolically but truly and really all I mean that should be chosen to it CHAP. VIII All men have sinned according to the similitude of Adams sin Infants have sinned according to the same similitude THe Apostle writes that Adam was a type of Christ Christ was then a prototype of Adam but by way of similitude of Adam with Christ his prototype And in regard as Christ who was to restore what Adam had lost was not the last of all men to comprehend men that were only past in his grace and justification no more needed Adam to be the first of all men to involve all men that were after him only in the imputation of his sin And as the death of Christ the prototype was imputed to all men both who liv'd in Christs time and who were from all time before him and those that have been since Christ and shall be born to the end of all time by the same type and similitude of the Prototype the sin of Adam was imputed to all men those who liv'd in the dayes of Adam and who were born before Adam and shall be born to eternity and the one sin of Adam caus'd all men both since and before to be condemned And that was it which the Apostle spoke very palpably in the same chapter 15. Rom. where he says That death reign'd from Adam unto Moses upon those also that had not sinned according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam Upon those who had not sinn'd which words are no doubt to be understood of those men that were born before Adam Men that were born before Adam did sin The men that were born after him sinn'd Men that were sinners according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam born before Adam Men that were born after Adam sinn'd acording to his similitude Which to open up in order we must observe that never no man sinned actually as Adam sinned but that it was actually imputed to all for no man as I said before did actually eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil which according to the common opinion no mortal men ever saw nor could see for the tree was remov'd from the sight of all men so soon as Adam was thrust out of Paradise But if no man could actually sin as Adam did and yet all sinn'd as Adam did it remains that all sinn'd according to the similitude of that sin by the imputation of it Certainly all Orthodox Divines agree upon what I said before That to impute to any one anothers sin is to esteem him as the committer of it In which it is requisit that one of the persons have not committed it otherwise not another mans sin but his own shall be imputed to him And it is certain that the adventitious sin of Adam was imputed to all men We must therefore think that all men were esteem'd in the same condition as if they had perform'd that sin not actually for then no mans sin
there be a natural similitude of all mens sins with the sins of Adam yet the Apostle meant not that material and natural similitude here wherein we may also communicate with the beasts according to whose similitude all men sin naturally and materially by reason of their commmon nature and matter St. Paul meaned only that mystical and spiritual similitude which only man is capable of Men I say who have also a spiritual and mystical communion with Christ to which communion to say that beasts could come were wickedness CHAP. IX How the imputation of the sin of Adam was imputed backward and upon the predecessors of Adam by a mystery provided for their salvation How the predecessors of Adam could be sav'd BUt how could say they the sin of Adam be imputed backward And how could death reign back upon them that were already dead Nor ought it seem a wonder to any that the sin of Adam was imputed backward considering what I have often inculcated That the faith of Abraham according to the consent of all Divines was imputed to the Predecessors of Abraham though dead and that Christ was imputed to all both before himself and Abraham though dead and buried But yet it will seem prodigious that death reign'd back from the imputation of the sin of Adam considering that no death could happen to men but that which descended upon men by the seed of Adam which as they say became mortal and begat death since Adam sinn'd For grant this and it is impossible to imagine that death pass'd upon all men by the seed and sin of Adam because it is impossible to be done and impossible to be conceiv'd that Adam did beget his predecessors But if we consider that death which passed from Adam upon all men to be mystical and spiritual which not materially nor naturally but mystically and spiritually returned upon all men that will be very clear For as we conceive that death invaded Adam and all after him that very hour when he sinn'd Why should we not think that death seiz'd also all before and all after And if there be any thing of impossibility to be spoken of the men that were before Why should there not be the same impossibility in those that come after Yea in this mysterie their should be a greater regard had to those who were before than those that came after Because those which are dead and are not are in some condition thought to be because they were certainly but those who are to come never were and it may be never will have any being The Apostle tels us plain That the kingdom of death did vanish after the destruction of the Mosaical Law or since Christ which is the same Let no man doubt notwithstanding that death reign'd upon all men who were begotten since Christ to our times and upon those that shall be begotten after us to the end of all time The question is Since which time did death reign over those that were born since Christ and shall be born after him Certainly not since the death of Christ as is said For Christ dying destroyed the kingdome of Death Since that time then when the kingdome of death was in force From Adam and since that time wherein Adam and all men in Adam deserv'd to die for their transgression who by Cassiodorus are elegantly said To have deserv'd death before they tasted of life Death then reign'd from Adam upon men that were to be and were not yet born which if it could any otherwise than mystically and meerly intellectually let every body imagine And what hinders us to have the same thoughts of men that are past as we have of those men that were to come And we grant that death reigned mystically upon one and that it did reign likewise mystically upon the other Likewise by way of mystery Parabolically and in all supposition of Law there will be more reason why death should reign over those that are past than those that are not born if we call to mind the ways of Judges in Criminals with whom it is no new thing to inflict a punishment upon the dead who command the dead bodies of guilty persons to be present at judgement that according to the punishment of the Law they may suffer a civil death which by a natural one they have prevented But what Law is so cruel as to ordain any such thing concerning men that never were What Law condemns men not born to die Let us therefore think that a mystical and spiritual death reign'd upon all the predecessors of Adam Just as the Civil Law presupposes those that have dyed a natutural death may be also condemned to a civil death But any one may answer Those guilty persons dyed a deserved civil death by the sentence of the Judges for breach of the civil Law But those men who dyed before Adam and never did violate any Law because never none was given to them how could they deserve any such thing at Gods hands and what such barbarous Law allow'd the Custome to involve dead men in guilt kill them over again and add a legal death to their natural death by a Law which they never transgress'd Let us never have any such thought that there is any such injustice in God or any cruelty in his Law God forbid that any such thing should come into our minds that God should ever decree any thing that should tend to their destruction which we confuted before Whatsoever God decreed concerning men it is decreed for their salvation and if there was any thing then which seem'd to them disadvantagious God would in his own time turn it to the best Therefore God provided for those men which were before Adam that they should die by the transgression of Adam that they might again rise from the dead according to the spirit of sanctification which is in Christ They were sav'd because they perished And it had been thought a disadvantage to the mystery unlesse those who were in possibility to rise again had perished And both could be well enough performed upon them to die in Adam and rise in Christ by the mutual and reciprocal imputations of Adam and Christ mystically and spiritually understood if we conceive the condemnation of death turn'd back upon them in the same manner as we understand the absolution from condemnation by the satisfaction and death of Christ mystically and spiritually returned also Yea they do object How can ever the predecessors of Adam be sanctified and a rise up to eternal life in Christ if life eternal which is the salvation of man is granted to none but such as know God the Father and believed in Christ his Son whom the Father sent But how could they either know God the Father or believe in Christ his Son who never heard any thing neither of Father nor Son for knowlege and faith are by hearing That I may answer this according to time and place you must know that all Adams
unto you again these same Verses of the Apostle 5 to the Romans because they are boundaries of this Systeme 12. As by one man sin entred into the world and by sin death even it so passed upon all men because all men had sinned 13. For until the Law sin was in the world but sin was not imputed when there was no Law 14. But death reigned from Adam till Moses likewise upon those who had not sinned according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam who is a type of the future First we must observe that this is a singular place where he intends to speak of that sin commonly called original which passed from Adam upon all men nor is there any other observed in the whole Bible through the whole Old and New Testament where clearly and openly this sin of Adam is handled Hence it is proved that Adam is meant by that man of whom the Apostle speaks by whom sin entred into the world and by sin death by whom also death passed upon all men as in him all men had sinned But for the same reason that the Apostle spoke of that sin of Adam which brought guilt upon all men it follows that he likewise meant that Law in this place the transgression of which caused the sin of Adam as likewise that Law be understood to be the Law of Adam which is to be thought to be given to all men just so as all men in Adam are thought to have transgressed it Therefore we will banish hence the Mosaical Law which had nothing to doe with Original sin because it was not given to Adam nor to all men in Adam and therefore the transgression of it could not be imputed to Adam nor to all men in Adam And certainly the Mosaical Law was only given and publisht to the Jews and not to other men the transgression of which ought only to have been imputed to the Jews and not to the rest of the Nations which were not of the kinred and family of Jews who were not held nor tyed by any bond or Covenant He gave his words to Jacob and his testimonies to Israel He did not so to all Nations nor did he manifest his judgements to them as sung the Prophet in the 148 Psalm and many such are read in holy Authors which for brevities sake I omit If the Apostle meant here the Law of Adam not the Law of Moses sin was in the world until the Law of Adam by the same Apostle and therefore before the Law of Adam and it must be that these men come to my presupposition which sinned before the Law of Adam or before Adam which is the same Besides it is clearer than clear fire That the Apostle in this place sets down two sorts of sins in time and quality different Different in time where he mentions sin after the Law and sin before the Law Different in quality where he meant That sin before the Law was not imputed sin following the Law was imputed For sayes Paul Sin until the Law was in the world but sin was not imputed or is not imputed as some translate it when there was no Law But if sin was in the world until the Law it was also before the Law And that sin which did violate the Law was without doubt after the Law You see here sins designed before and after the Iav different in time Again if sin be not imputed when the Law is not who will say that that sin was imputed which was before the Law or which was committed before the Law But if on the other part that was the transgression of the Law which caused imputation we shall call that sin imputable which broke the Law and so was after the Law You see here sins distinct in quality Sin that was not imputed before the Law we may call Natural since it depended upon no prohibition of the Law but had its original from the meer ill disposition of humane nature Sin which was imputed after the Law because it had its original from the meer transgression of the Law let us call it Legal And let us again call that death which upon my supposition ensued Natural sin Natural death and that Legal death which punished Legal sin Which that it may appear more clearly we must first know That humane nature is considered two manner of wayes right and perverse Right which had the image of innocence and perfection in so farr as man could be created right and perfect Perverse which turned away from the righteousness of that perfection which I call natural We must know secondly That the Law was appointed not to make men perfect but to reduce men to their perfection which were depraved and corrupted Not to make perfect but to teach and prescribe perfection And those whom shame of transgression could not deter from misdemeanour fear of punishment might keep them within the rules of honesty The Perfection of men is directed by Law and right reason Right reason is natural and born with us The Law is a stranger and prescribed to us But that was born before this was written and was constituted not by opinion but by nature The Law teaches us that which we have forgotten by the corruption of our Nature and Right reason for we should not know what were sin if the Law had not taught us And hence it is that the Law simply so called is styled a School-master by the Apostle and all other Laws are called Instructions Commands Precepts in both Authors sacred and prophane Men sinned only with a natural sin before the Law and till the Law as oft as they fell from that perfection to which by the nature of their creation they were born and as oft as they erred from that right reason which guided them to their perfection All men sinned two manner of ways after the Law and after the Law was given to them For first they sinned against that perfection of their nature They sinned secondly against the prescript and ordination of the Law which called them back into the right way And this is that which I call legal sin and which St. Paul Rom. 7. thinks to be the highest sin against the Law that is to be a sin against the Law a degree higher than the sin against nature And whatsoever sin there is be it natural or legal hath its own natural or legal punishment attending it And death is the inseparable wages of every sin whether you ascribe it to Nature or to the Law Natural death which is begotten by natural corruption never fails sooner or later to overtake depraved nature which is before it Legal death sits behind the Law-breaker as an avenger And Legal sin is as it were grafted into natural sin and legal death added to the natural Legal death added to the natural causes a civil death which in imagination and spirit is conceivable Humane lawes have provided that men should not stray without the limits of right
if that day he was made he had perfectly known all arts and sciences Therefore he understood them not Let us grant that the world was made with Adam it will not therefore follow that all sciences and arts were fram'd with Adam Truly in the beginning the prime causes and means of all sciences were in God but the seeds of them were only sowed in Adam which could not arise but by meditation reasoning with himself by cultivating and time Adam might attain all arts and sciences but not for that cause he attained to them that minute he was born Besides Adam could not understand any thing of things past or judge of things to come as a man though most perfect unlesse by knowledge or conjecture or rather by consideration of things present according to the common phrase that there can be nothing in the knowledge or intellect of the most perfect man which is not first his sense For Example then Adam could not subdivide the regions of heaven which is the knowledge of the Sphere but that he first must find out the regions of the earth unlesse he had first travel'd about the world and view'd it But such a thing could not be perform'd but by daily journeys meditation and comparing according to the Psalm One day â—elates to another and one night preaches knowledge to another In which place the day signifies the apprehension of things which is signified by the sight the most noble of the senses The night the recollection of those things apprehended by consultation and meditation But if Adam as a man yea in the integrity of his perfection or before sin which is the same thing could not but by little and little and succession of time gain all sciences arts and disciplines Certainly he must be far longer time in gaining them after his fall especially according to their supposition who think that his mine was darkned and dulld by ignorance of all things Besides according to them there is so short a time betwixt the framing of Adam and his sin that Adam could know nothing but what cost him travel enough yea the same travel and rate as all disciplines are sold for to sinful men Those which are scrupulously addicted to thâ— books of Moses use to referre the inventions oâ— all arts sciences and disciplines either to Adaem or his posterity because in Moses there is no man read of before Adam This they believe upon the same score as they believe that all antiquities both in natural and humane historie are rontained in holy Writ especially in Moses I intend not God forbid I should either diminish the authority of the Scriptures or doubt the truth of them I will tell you ingenuously what 's my opinion 〈◊〉 if I be mistaken let it be upon my self 〈…〉 and will still hold That there is as much in the Bible as God has granted us to know either of the Original of the World of Prophecies Divine mysteries or our salvation Those things which belong meerly to our Salvation consist but in a few things And in them the holy Spirit has bestow'd so much pains and clearnesse as belongs to humane capacity Those things which concern other things are set down more at large And concerning them I shall openly declare that which all know but most are loath to speak That so great things are written with so great carelessness and obscuritie that sometimes nothing can be more obscure nothing more intricate Seeking with my self what should be the reason of this I answered thus in reason to my self as any one would have done That God who would have himself known by men hid himself and would not be perfectly seen For that he professed concerning himself to the Jews That he would dwell in a cloud And therefore in the Old Testament open'd himself unto them not always under one name And in the Gospel hinder'd the Devils and the Spirits from divulging who he was Besides whatsoever he said was a Parable and by divers circumlocutions he delay'd his auditors But if God speaking face to face spoke intricately and aenigmatically it is not unlike that the Scriptures remitted to posterity should be more knottie and intricate Hence those unusual apparitions which we read to have been seen by holy Writers set down in unusual and strange ways of expression But howsoever who will make it good although all we have received be knotty and intricate that those are the Originals which we now have Certainly it cannot be denyed but the Books of Josuah Chronicles and Kings have been copied out and I shall make it appear The miracle of Joshua at whose command the Sun and Moon stood still is manifestly copied out For it is written in the 10th Chapter of that book And the Sun and Moon stood still till the people were avenged of their enemies Is it not written in the books of the just This miracle then is taken out of the books of the just that is out of the books of the Jews who were called just as I observ'd before I say taken out of another book whether it were the Original or no. And nothing more frequent in other books Behold they are written in the books of Nathan or in the books of Gad or in the books of the remembrances of the Kings of Israel and the Kings of Judah or in the words of Jehu the son of Hanani or in the words of Hosea the Prophet or in the Prophet Isay every one of them having their own History to which it had relation now lost Whatsoever is read in the Kings or Châ—onicles are gather'd out of the books of Nathan Gad Jehu Hosea Isay c. Whence they are taken and gather'd as is found by the confession of the authors who wrote them I know not by what author it is found out that the Pentateuch is Moses his own copy It is so reported but not believ'd by all These Reasons 〈…〉 believe that those Five Books are not the Originals but copied out by another Because Moses is there read to have died For how could Moses write after his death They say that Josuah added the death of Moses to Deuteronomic But who added the death of Josuah to that book which is so call'd and which being written by Josuah himself is reckon'd in Moses his Pentateuch Besides we read in the 1. Cha. of Deut. These are the words which Moses spake beyond Jordan Which if Moses had spoken he had said on this side Jordan For Moses had not pass'd Jordan nay he never pass'd it but he that writes Deuteronomy sayes beyond Jordan because it was in the holy Land and because that place in the plains of Moab where Moses last spoke to the Israelites was beyond Jordan And this beyond Jordan you shall find repeated often by the same Moses It being to him on this side Jordan There is also a passage cited out of a Book whose Title was The Warrs of the Lord. The words in Numbers are these Whence
water 's nigh That is 〈◊〉 suffers thirst God could indeed by his miracle in which he is wonderfully powerfull have done all that that the Jews should not be hungry nor dry nor their clothes be worn nor their shoes be spent And there haâ—â—â—en need of these miracles if they had had no wool nor no leather but they wanted none of these things nor was any such miracle needfull Yea this miracle would rather have manifestly evidenced the want of clothes and shoes if for want of clothes and shoes and by the virtue of that miracle they had always put on the same clothes and the same shoes which could never wear out On the other side it shew'd the abundance of clothes and shoes which they had because neither their clothes nor shoes grew old because they chang'd both so often And ascribe this to the providence and care of the Lord by which all things which were necessary for the Jews were provided for them because he led them sometimes through pleasant and plentifull places from whose Inhabitants Deut. 2. and elsewhere They bought mâ—at for money and did eat and bought water for money and did drink for which the Israelites were beholding to the Edomites and Moabites And when Sehon forbad them this privilege they smote him with all his people and all his Cities and took the prey and spoil of his Towns Deuteronomie Chap. 2. And in the third Chapter they destroyed Og the King of Basan And that time they took the land from the Amorites which is beyond Jordan Moses himself would have said On this side Jordan which observe And that amongst the prey and spoils of these two Kings there were garments and shooes found and more than enough of materials to make both clothes and shooes This you may imagin also of the Amalekites oververcom by the Jews Exodus Chap. 17. before the Law given in Sinai To this you may add that the Jews for many years compassed Mount Seir inhabited by the Edomites from whom they bought victuals and water which I made now appear and from whose Cities they had clothes and shooes at a price CHAP. VII That the Flood of Noah was not upon the whole earth but only upon the Land of the Jews Not to destroy all men but only the Jews GIve us leave to discusse this last miracle of the flood of Noah which is believ'd to have overflow'd the kingdoms of the earth with most mighty overflowings and which I rather believe overflow'd only Palestine and the Land of the Jews The causes of this conjecture are chiefly the causes of the Deluge which here I shall mention from their beginnings I show'd you before that the Jews were framed in Adam and esteem'd the peculiar sons of God that they were separated from all other Nations which God had created in the beginning And that those Nations were call'd the sons of men in many places of holy writ I have set forth at large The Lord likewise set the Jews apart from all Nations when he plac'd them in his holy Land as in a fenced garden whither it should not be granted to other Nations to come God then had forbidden the Jews to make any mixture with other Nations Chiefly he suffer'd them not to defile their sons with the daughters of men Against the command of God the Jews had admitted the Gentiles into their land Who sayes Genesis when they began to multiply upon the earth the sons of God seeing the daughters of men that they were fair or which is the same the sons of Adam who were after called Jews seeing the daughters of the Gentiles took to themselves wives of all which they chose and by that copulation Giants were begotten For the Jews being made strong and lively by Gods late framing of them and going in to the daughters of men as strong men are begot by strong and divine seed mix'd with humane begets Heroes the sons of God lying with the daughters of men begat Heroes valiant men as they are set down in that same place by valiant and famous men in their age It repented God being angry at the wickednesse of the Jews that he had made men and wrought the clay of which he fram'd Adam of whom the Jews were born an earthie and corrupt generation of men The cogitation of whose heart was bent upon evil continually at all times that is from their first beginning both in Adam their Father who had transgressed the commandement of God and in themselves who had likewise broken the covenant of God I will cut off saith the Lord in that place man whom I have created from the face of the earth from the man to the beast from the creeping thing to the fowl of the heaven for I repent my self that I have made them Here take notice that by earth we understand Palestine according to the Hebrew who by earth simply express'd mean their own As I observ'd of the darknesse before in the death of the Lord. God then had decreed to destroy man whom he had created from the face of the earth By the man whom he had created understand the Jews the posterity of Adam I say of that Adam whom he had created or fram'd for creation and framing here is the same By living creatures understand also the Gentiles mingled amongst the Jews and causes of the sins of the Jews according to what I formerly set down at large where I made it appear that the Jews are simply call'd men in comparison of the Gentiles that the Gentiles on the other side compar'd to the Jews were call'd beasts and a people which was not a people in holy Scripture And such was Gods anger that he resolved not only to destroy all those Jews and Gentiles but all the men of that Land and all the cattel of it from the creeping things to the birds of the air except only Noe the Jew who according to Gods command fram'd an Ark to escape the violence of the Deluge The treasures of the great depth were opened sayes Genesis and the windows of heaven were opened and it rained upon the earth forty dayes and forty nights And there was a deluge upon the earth and the waters were multiplyed and they lifted up the Ark high from the earth for they increas'd exceedingly and fill'd all things upon the face of the earth And the waters preval'd exceedingly upon the earth And all the high hils were cover'd under the whole heaven The water was fifteen cubits above the mountaines which it had cover'd And all flesh upon the earth was destroyed birds living creatures and beasts and all creeping things All men and all things wherein is the breath of life died And he destroyed all things that was upon the earth from the man to the beast as well creeping things as fowls of the heaven and they were cut off from the earth Only Noe remained and those that were with him in the Ark. All which Genesis prophetically expressing and opening
against God when that fervour which was within them the corruption of their imperfect nature forc'd them headlong from the perfection of their creation to the imperfection of their matter For no guilt could be imputed by God no lawfull condemnation pronounced no death justly inflicted upon men meerly for that backsliding by which men who were of their own disposing turn'd from the uprightnesse of their creation into the wickednesse of their own creation According then to that mysterie that God would have all men to die in one God-man according to that same mysterie he resolv'd that all should sin and by one man be condemn'd a man I say simply so and not a God God would have all men die in Christ and sinne in Adam The vertue of the most high according to the great power of God over-shadowed a Virgin untouched and of her Christ was born in whom all men should die a pure sacrifice of a pure Virgin and of the stock of the Jews That so by the Jews and by the seed of the Jews Jesus Christ all men might receive salvation God fram'd Adam the Father of the Jews of common and impure earth corruptible to whom he gave his Law which if he did violate all men should be guilty in him and condemned by that Law That so likewise condemnation might come upon all men by Adam the father of the Jews But there was no need that men should by traduction be born of Christ that in him they migâ—â— die nor needed all men to be born of the descent of Adam that in him all men might die All that mysterie of salvation and condemnation of men in Christ and Adam made up the body of the mystery that is the spiritual and divine way above nature and which is ingendred in all men by intellect and mysterie and not by nature Whosoever understands the ways of Supposition in Law shall easily conceive the force of that mysterie by vertue of which men suffered losse of degree were chang'd or restor'd unto their estates and by which things only agreed upon were ratified and by formality of which they did obtain in antient time and yet obtain the lordship of most things All these things might have compass'd their effects and shown their natural force by bare Covenant or consent without any supposition But the Lawgivers did imagine ingrafting in these things which were naturally acted the legalities of their art to have added a better understanding to them As choice plants grow better when they are planred in Crab-tree stocks and such as grow wild God resolving to restore man that had fallen from his creation would not perfect the work in that direct and natural order as many things are done amongst men but by crooked windings of mystery by applications and spiritual graftings he thought best to perform the whole work Such mysteries seem to me very well to be titled Holy draughts Parables or Similitudes as the Apostle call'd them in that place of the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews where Isaac is presuppos'd as a figure of Christ to have laid down his life under the knife and according to that Parabolical death resembling the death of Christ he is presupposed to rise according to the similitude of the resurrection of Christ Where Abraham I say is presupposed to have sacrificed his son Isaac and to have received him again in Parable or similitude of resurrection which the Apostle purposely and very subtilly observed The Apostle Paul hath taught us that men die in the death of Christ according to parable and similitude of his death 6 Chap. to the Rom. In which place he directly tels us that by Baptism there is ingendred in us not only a similitude of his death but that there is engrafted in them by that same Sacrament a similitude of his resurection For if we be engrafted in him in his death so shall we be also in his resurrection And the Apostle taught us that all men sinn'd were guiltie and were condemn'd in Adam who sinned according to the similitude of his transgression According to the similitude of the transgression of Adam For that is to be understood a similitude and a Parable no propagation of nature as all men died in Christ Which that we may the better understand we must more at large handle the sin of Adam which is commonly called Original sin CHAP. II. Of Original sin It is inherent It is imputed What it is to impute That is imputed which is joyn'd in a kind of communion with that to which it is imputed Of communions and conjunctions of things Physical Political and Mystical Christ the end of all mysteries Adam ought to be referr'd to Christ not Christ to Adam Adam ought to be imputed to men as Christ is imputed to them spiritually and mystically WHat I shall speak first concerning Original sin is asserted by all Orthodox Divines That sin is consider'd two manner of ways either as sin or as a guilt as a sin so it is inherent as it is a guilt it is adventitious and pass'd from Adam upon them all The one is proper to all men the other a stranger and call'd the sin of Adam The first is the formality the second is the materiality of the sin The material sin is proper and inherent an hereditary disease or blemish in which all men are conceiv'd and born according to that of the Psalmist In sin hath my Mother conceiv'd me A formal sin which is anothers and is become a guilt which was the disobedience of Adam imputed to all men according to that of the Apostle By the disobedience of one many became sinners The materiality of sin which is the proper fault and infection inherent in all by propagation of the matter and nature of men subject to corruption The formality of sin which is a stranger and transient had its beginning from imputation by the transgression of the Law which Adam did violate To impute to any one the sin of another is to esteem him in the same condition as if he had committed the fault himself Otherwise it is not anothers fault but his own which is imputed to him Beside the fault of one uses to be imputed to another which has some communion or conjunction with him as having some manner of corporal societie and similitude with him For as smoke coming near the fire takes fire by reason of the similitude and aptitude is has to flame so things that have a communion and conjunction betwixt them are apt or susceptive one of anothers imputations Communions and conjunctions of things fit for imputation by reason of their similitude are three-fold Physical Political and Mystical The fault of their Fathers is imputed to the Children by reason of that common and natural similitude by which sons begotten of their fathers are naturally joyn'd to them The sons are said to have sinn'd in the loyns of their Fathers as Levi is said to be taken for tithe in the loyns
of his Father Abraham Heb. 7. As also the Hebrews are said all to be taken by God in the hand of Abraham their Father Isay 41. There are both divine and humane Lawes for imputations ordain'd according to natural communion and similitude The divine by which God is said to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation And according to that here the fathers are said to eat the sowr grapes and the childrens teeth to be set an edge The humane law by which there is punishment decreed against the Children of the Traytors by the guilt of their Parents There are examples both divine and humane of imputation of the Fathers fault to the Children That amongst divine examples is eminent of the seven sons of Saul whom according to the command of God David gave the Gabaonites as an expiation because their Father before had broke his promise with the Gabaonites and cruelly slain many of them It s read of Alexander that after he had taken Tyre as if he had been the defender of the publique tranquility he crucified all the Tyrians who outlived the siedge who were born of those slaves their Ancestors who long before had destroyed the free people of Tyre together with their Masters cruelly by a conspiracy made against them God imputed to the Jews the numbring of the people which David had caus'd and consumed seventy thousand of them with the plague for their Kings offence For that communion and conjunction politique whereby the whole Kingdom is thought one and one entire body like a living creature whose head is their King And as a murther performed by the hand is not only imputed to the hand but the whole man So in a body politique that which the head doth as being head is imputed to the whole body It is the work of Iove says Hesiod to punish Cities promiscuously for the transgression of the Magistrate So because the Priest of Apollo was violated by Agamemnon the whole Army of the Greeks was almost destroyed by Pestilence And whatsoever the Prince did amisse the Greeks smarted for 't Nor only the act of the head of a City but also of another member makes the whole body liable to guilty So as it is read of Achan Who having taken of the accursed thing brought all Israel under a curse Josue 7. And which is also read of the Levites Concubine 19 Judges whom the Inhabitants of Gabea of the tribe of Benjamin swiv'd to death And whose wickednesse was so rigidly imputed to all the Tribe that all the Tribe for that wickednesse was almost destroyed and routed out Nor were the Heathens ignorant of such imputations As Hesiod says Many times says he the whole Country is destroyed And Horace Neglected Jove doth sometimes add In punishment the good to bad Those imputations which by politique Communion are contracted from the offences of others others of them are of the law of Nations others according to Civil law According to the Law of Nations the fault of Sedecias by perjury was imputed to the whole Nation for which cause being overcome and falling into the Enemies hands they were all carryed Captives to Babilon By the same Law of Nations whatsoever the Ambassadour transacts is imputed to the Commonwealth or the Nation as also 't is imputed to the pledges whatsoever is done by them who give the pledges By Civil law it is imputed to the whole people whatsoever the chief procurer does for the people and to the chief in Government whatsoever they doe in behalf of the people To the Colonie or Colledge whatsoever their Trustees shall do in their behalf To Pupils and Minors is imputed whatsoever shall be judged against them according to the consent of the Tutors or Overseers There are likewise mystical bodies which by their mystical Communion and similitude do engage imputations Such is that mystical body by which all men as it were by a mystical conglutination are joyned with him by reason of that similitude they have with Christ For God did not put on the shape of an Angel but the shape of a Man that he might become in all things like to men except Sin that he might be a fellow sufferer with men and be an expiation for them By that mystical Communion and society by which his death is imputed to all men Such is that mystical Communion and society by which the faith of Abraham is imputed to all the faithful And all the faithfull are call'd the Sons of Abraham not the Sons of Nature but the sons of Adoption and mystical similitude which did unite all things According to that same Communion and mystical society the sin of Adam was imputed to other men For although Adam was made by Gods hands by a peculiar and choice way of framing beyond other men yet God had fram'd him as in other places I took notice of the same clay of the same common earth and of the same matter subject to corruption in which all other men were created And in all things was Adam made like other men with sin also Yea even as fin was a natural imperfection to all inherent and proper to Adam himself and so to all men And likewise as all men by reason of that society of sinning were apt or suceptive of that guilt which came by the transgression of Adam It is commonly believ'd that the death of Christ was imputed to men because the sin of Adam was imputed to them They are deceived that think so Yea upon the contrary the sin of Adam was purposely imputed to men that the death of Christ might be imputed to them likewise For Christ ought not to be referr'd to Adam but Adam ought to be referr'd to Christ For all things tend towards their end for which they are made Christ was the end of all mysteries therefore were all mysteries meerly for Christ and not Christ for the mysteries Adam was a type of Christ But Christ was a prototype of Adam A type is referr'd to a prototype and not a prototype to its type Nor for any other cause was the sin of Adam imputed to men than that the death of Christ which appeals for all mens sins and regenerates them might be also imputed to them Therefore in Gods decree the imputation was first design'd in the death of Christ Secondly in the sin of Adam as you shall read it in the Revelations That Christ was a Lamb slain from the ordaining of the world Yea and that the mystery of shedding his blood was known and decreed before the ordaining of the world 1 Pet. chap. 1. Which you shall never find of Adam because Adam ought to be referr'd to Christ as the principle decree of God and his own first type But these things which were first in the decree and council of God were not also in order of the performance made first Hence also it happens that the sin of Adam went before the death of Christ And hence it
dead let him keep with him his aspersion and preserve it in his grave Let this be enough that the fame of the man which now goes up and down the world with the creditable report of divers and high endowments of learning deceive not more with the allurements of his Eloquence and by his trappings of probable conjecture Grotius argues thus The Norwegians landed in Greenland They went forward from Greenland to America Therefore the Norwegians were the authors of the Nations in America Let us grant that Grotius took the right way of proving this and that all were true he built upon this ground Certainly if America must needs be peopled by the Greenlanders which were likewise Norwegians He must prove first according to his own ground and first of all that the Norwegians who first lighted upon it found it empty and only the winds blowing upon the leaves in those Countries whence he might gather this conclusion that the Norwegians first planted Greenland who afterwards straying about the world strewed Colonies over all America and so the Americans and the Greenlanders should be indeed the posterity of the Norwegians I say he ought first to have proved that the Greenlanders were the off-spring of the Norwegians before he should guesse that the Americans were sprung from the Greenlanders and of the same stock of Norway It is most certain that the Norwegians wâ—â—h first landed upon Greenland in the Easlern parts of it rough and wild which the Norwegians called Ostreburg going to find out the western parts better habitable which they call Westreburg found it full of all manner of herds cattle as also full of the men of that Climate whom they call'd Schlegringians who beat off the Norwegians falling upon their quarters with a great slaughter A true and faithfull narrative of which is in the Greenland Chronicle written in Danish which is in the hands of the most famous Gauminus skillfull in all languages which I also knew in Denmark The Norwegians were there strangers not the founders of the Greenlanders much lesse of the Americans These are fancies of Grotius made for ostentation of his learning In that he says there are many words among the Indians agreeing with the German language as also that the customs of the Americans in many things is like the Germans as milk is like milk which he by several examples instances that he may proâ—e that the Americans had those customs from the Norwegians who first had them from the Germans Let us passe by that chain by which Grotius would ingraft the Germans in the Norwegians the Norwegians in the Greenlanders the Greenlanders in the Americans and so one Nation into another It is a true story and very well known in all Copenhagen the chief City of Denmark which I also in the same City received from Danes that there lived in Copenhagen Greenlanders Barbarians taken by the Danes about thirty years agoe yea two of them for the space of two years were kept as Danes who notwithstanding could not by no means learn the Danish and he had no similitude of speech or behaviour like the Norwegians This I have set down more at large in my relation of Greenland in French But if the Greenlanders had no affinity in their customs with the Norwegians either in speech or custome the Norwegians must needs sail some other way to America to communicate their customs to them than from Greenland But what would Grotius say if he were now alive and should read that the Schlegringi were there and inhabited Greenland before the Norwegians came what manner of men would he say they were Would he say they were from eternity or sprung from Greenland it self or cast out by the Ocean upon land or founded by another than Adam if any such thing be believed says he Religion is in danger The danger that he saw was that by this means he perceived the original sin of Adam was by this doctrine quite overthrown because it is the common consent of all Divines that only by traduction it could passe upon all men This then I must prove and this is only my task to make it appear that we needed not Adam for our Father nor traduction of Adam to make us partakers of his sin as we needed not that Christ should be our Father and his traduction should make us partakers of that grace is by Christ and all the following book shall be of this which shall begin with the end of this The Fifth Book of this SYSTEME OF DIVINITY CHAP. I. Men behov'd to die to become immortal Men dye in Christ They behov'd first to sin and be condemn'd in Adam Men dye in Christ spiritually and mystically Of the fictions and mysteries of the Law Of divine mysteries which were either fictions or parables or mystical similitudes We die spiritually according to the similitude of Christ We sinned spiritually according to the similitude of the sin of Adam I Must recapitulate what I said in the beginning of this Systeme That men who were to be renew'd by a second creation were to receive a new form which could not without blotting out of the first form and extinguishing of the first creation be performed All corrupt and mortal men behov'd to be so ordered as decrepit and feeble Pelias whom Medeae slew and cut him to pieces to change him from old to young Corrupt and mortal men behov'd to die to recompence corruption with incorruption and death with immortality But such a destruction by which God must needs break all men as it were in a mortar seem'd cruel to God God had thought it better to heal those whom he would not bruise And by mystery brought that to pass which by harshnesse he deem'd inconvenient to himself He resolv'd that men should die for the death of one man who should be an expiation forthem Nor yet by the death of one man who was simply a man but of man-God I say of that God and Spirit who is begot of God incorrupt and immortal And who should become mortal like to corrupt flesh that by this similitude he might make men incorrupt and immortal God decreed that men should die in the death of that man-God who is Christ But the decree of mens death which should be to them as a condemnation must needs passe before the death of man according to a divine and spiritual mysterie to men unknown And the cause of their condemnation which is guilt by reason of sin must needs passe before their condemnation Men then must become guilty by their own sin before they were condemned of sin and be condemned to die for the punishment of sin And that guilt is called by the Apostle the condemnation of sin in the flesh that is of natural sin which had no imputation no guilt no condemnation before the Law For sin in the flesh is the same with carnal material and natural sin God is just and deals with men according to Law Men had not sinn'd