2. 4. Luke 2. 25. The Scripture useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for quatentus as Rom. 11. 13. And indeed this is most consonant to the Apostles scope for why should Adam's sinne be brought in rather than other parents Were it not that we were considered in him under a common respect as one with him It is true Erasmus saith he doth not remember that ever he read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a Dative case but Heb. 9. 17. may confute him And among prophane Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26. 50. be said by most men to signifie in as much For as De Dieu observeth the postpositive is for the demonstrative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Art thou come for this as the other Evangelists Dost thou betray the sonne of man with a kisse Although if we should render it causaâ—ly as the adversaries contend it would no wayes prejudice the truth we plead for seeing that the sinne here charged upon all mankind is because of Adam And therefore if we will make any rational coherence in the Apostles discourse it must be after this manner As by one man sinne entered into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all men as much as all have sinned that is all sinned in that one man for what sense it is to say That by one man sinne and death entred upon all because all sinned in themselves This would be a contradiction to lay the death of mankind upon Adam's sinne and upon all mens actual sinnes likewise Yea it is wholly repugnant to the Apostles scope who is comparing Adam and Christ not simply as two originals and beginnings but as two causes of death and life Indeed I would not much contend with any that would render the word causally and so make the verse an whole entire proposition in it self without any defective expression at all so that we understand all mens sinning to be interpreted of that which they are guilty of in Adam It is not worth time to take notice of the wild Divinity imposed upon this Discourse of Pauls by the late Writer Vnum Necessar pag. 365 who would have Death come upon mankind occasionally onely by Adam's sinne and that but till Moses his time and after Moses to come upon a new account by the Law promulged through his ministry The mentioning of this is confutation enough for here in this Text the Apostle doth make all mankind to die because of Adam And why may not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text. Another Text witnessing this truth is Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sinne is death Here death is not taken only for eternal death as the Socinians say because the opposite unto it is made eternal life but for both kinds of death eternal and temporal temporal death being the in-let of eternal and so contrary to eternal life Neither is that cavil of their worth any thing who would make the wages of sinne to be the Subject and not the Predicate because the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put to it but that is no sure Rule Sometimes the Article is put to the Predicate for some emphasis sake and not the Subject as I Cor. 9. 1. Are not ye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my work in the Lord Are ye not that eminent and conspicuous singular work of mine in the Lord We see then what it is that sinne deserveth even temporal and eternal death it cometh not from mans primitive constitution but Adam's transgression Therefore it is that we deserve many thousand deaths if it were possible for original sinne deserveth death every actual sinne deserveth death yea and hell also Oh how miserable is man who thus deserveth to die and to be damned over and over again Therefore the Apostle useth the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie the manifold evils that are in this death The word properly signifieth that meat which was allowed souldiers for their service in warre We see then how fearfull we all are to be of sinne What wages wilt thou have for every pleasant every profitable sinne even death temporal and eternal The last Text I shall mention is that which Austin so much urgeth in this point Rom. 8. 10. The body is dead because of sinne which is chiefly to be understood of our mortal body now he saith it's dead because of the sentence of death passed it so that there is no way to escape it It is sinne then that maketh the body in a state of death that deserveth the whole harmony and good temperament of the body should be dissolved and therby follow a dissolution of the whole man For though sinne deserve death yet there must be thereby some ataxy or disorder made in the body of a man otherwise death would not follow So that though sinne be the meritorious cause yet several diseases the effect of sinne do actually cause death Not that sinne maketh a substantial change in a man but an accidental only Thus you see the Scripture constantly attributing death yea and our mortality and corruptibility to sinne onely and not to our natural constitution Therefore those are strange positions we meet with Vnum Necessar cap. 6. Sect. 1. pag. 371 372. That death came in not by any new sentence or change of nature for man was created mortal and that if Adam had not sinned he should have been immortal by grace that is by the use of the tree of life That to die is a punishment to some to others not It was a punishment to all that sinned before Moses and since upon the first it fell as a consequent of Gods anger upon Adam upon the later it fell as a consequent of that anger which was threatned in Moses Law but to those who sinned not at all as Infants and Ideots it was meerly a condition of their nature and no more a punishment then to be a child is But seeing he professeth himself to be of the same judgement with his incomparable Grotius let him consider how these positions agree with him who doth against Socinus industriously and solidly prove Defens fid de satisfac cap. 1. pag. 19 20 21. that death hath alwayes some respect of a punishment instancing in the Texts I have mentioned using such words Quidclarius Quis vel verba legens non videat hanc sententiam and Corinthians the words of my Text and an ad anussim respondereisti ad Romanos Yea he concludeth That it were easie to prove that it was the perpetual judgment of the ancient Jews and Christians that death of whatsoever kind it be viz. whether with violence or without violence was the punishment of sinne adding that the Christian Emperors did deservedly condemn beside other things this opinion of Pelagians that they held mortem non ex insidiis fluxisse peccati sed exegisse eam legem
Fourth Part. TReating of the Effects of Original Sinne. CHAP. I. Of that Propensity that is in every one by Nature to sinne Job 15. 16. How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water SECT I. The Text explained and vindicated from Socinian Exceptions SECT II. How much is implied in this Metaphor Man drinketh iniquity like water SECT III. Some Demonstrations to prove that there is such an impetuous Inclination in man to sinne SECT IV. The true Causes of this Proneness and the false ones assigned by the Adversaries examined CHAP. II. The second immediate Effect of Original Sinne is the Causality which it hath in respect of all other sins Jam. 1. 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed SECT I. The Text explained setting forth the generation of Sinne. SECT II. That Original Sinne is the Cause of all Actual Evil cleared by several Propositions which may serve for Antidotes against many Errours ¶ 2. Of the Motions of the heart to sinne not consented unto as an immediate Effect of Original Sinne. ¶ 3. How many wayes the Soul may become guilty of sinne in respect of the Thoughts and motions of the heart CHAP. III. Of the Combate between the Flesh and the Spirit as the Effect of Original Sinne so that the Godliest man cannot do any holy Duty perfectly in this life Gal. 5. 17. For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would SECT I. The Text explained and vindicated from corrupt Interpretations SECT II. Several Propositions clearing the truth about the Combate between the Flesh and Spirit in a Godly man SECT III. A Consideration of that part of the seventh Chapter to the Romans which treats of the Conflict within a man Shewing against Amyraldus and others that it must be a regenerate person only of whom those things are spoken ¶ 4. The several wayes whereby Original Sinne doth hinder the Godly in their Religious Progress whereby they are sinfull and imperfect ¶ 5. Objections against the Reliques of Sin in a regenerate man answered ¶ 8. The several Conflicts that may be in a man ¶ 10. How the Combate in a Godly man between the Flesh and Spirit may be discerned from other Conflicts ¶ 10. Of the Regenerates freedome from the Dominion of sinne and whether it be by the Suppression of it or by the Abolishing part of it CHAP. IV. Of Death coming upon all men as another Effect of Original Sinne. 1 Cor. 15. 22. For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive SECT II. Death an Effect of Original Sinne explained in divers Propositions ¶ 2. How many wayes a thing may be said to be Immortal and in which of them man is so ¶ 4. Distinctions about Mortality and that in several respects Adam may be said to be created Mortal and Immortal ¶ 7. The several Grounds assigned by Schoolmen of Adam's Immortality rejected and some Causes held forth by the Orthodox SECT III. Arguments to prove That through Adam's sinne we are made sinners and so Mortal SECT IV. Arguments brought to prove That Adam was made Mortal answered SECT V. Whether Adam's sinne was onely an occasion of Gods punishing all mankind resolved against D. J. Taylor SECT VI. Whether Death may be attributed to mans constitution considered in his meer Naturals against D. J. Taylor and the Socinians CHAP. V. Eternal Damnation another Effect of Original Sinne. Ephes 2. 3. And were by nature the children of wrath as well as others SECT I. What is meant by Wrath in this Text. SECT II. What is meant by Nature SECT III. That by nature through the original sinne we are born in all are heirs of Gods wrath all are obnoxious to eternal damnation SECT IV. What is comprehended in this Expression Children of wrath SECT V. Some Propositions in order to the proving That the wrath of God is due to all mankind because of Original Sinne. SECT VI. Arguments to prove it SECT VII Some Conclusions deduceable from the Doctrine of the damnableness of Original Sinne. SECT VIII A Consideration of their Opinion that hold an Universal Removal of the Guilt of Original Sinne from all mankind by Christs Death Answering their Arguments among which that from the Antithesis or Opposition which the Apostle maketh Rom. 5. between the first Adam and the second Adam SECT IX Of the state of Infants that die in their Infancy before they are capable of any Actual Transgressions and that die before Baptisme A TREATISE OF Original Sinne. PART I. CHAP. I. The first Text to prove Original Sinne improved and vindicated SECT I. EPHES. 2. 3. And were by nature the children of wrath as well as others THE true Doctrine of Original Corruption is of so great concernment that Austin thought De Peccato Orig. contra Pelag. Celest 2. cap. 24. the Summe of Religion to consist in knowing of this as the effect of the first Adam and also of Christ the second Adam with all his glorious benefits Though therefore Coelestius of old thought it to be but Recquaestionis not fides Ibidem cap. 4. And others of late have wholly rejected it as Austin's figment yet certainly the true way of Humiliation for sinne or Justification by Christ cannot be firmly established unless the true Doctrine of this be laid as a Foundation-stone in the building Now because original sinne is used ambiguously by Divines sometimes for Adam's first sinne imputed unto us for Omnes homines fuerunt ille unus homo he was the common Person representing all mankind as is in time to be shewed And this for distinction sake is called Originale originans or Originale imputatum And sometimes it 's taken passively for the effect of that first sinne of Adam viz. The total and universal pollution of all mankind inherently through sinne which is called Originale originatum or inherens I shall treat of it in this later acception as being of great practical improvement many wayes SECT II. ANd because in Theological Debates two Questions are necessary The An sit and the Quid sit Whether there be such a thing and What it is and in both these the truth of God meeteth with many adversaries I shall first insist on the Quod sit That there is such a natural and cursed pollution upon every one that is born in an ordinary way The first Text I shall fasten this Truth upon is this I have mentioned which deservedly both by Ancient and Modern Writers is thought to have a pregnant and evident demonstration That there is such a natural contagion upon all To understand this the better take notice of the Coherence briefly The Apostles scope is to incite the Ephesians to Thankfulness by the consideration of that great love and infinit mercy vouchsafed to them by God and because the Sunne is most
an hidden and secret infusion of holiness into our souls whereby we are made new creatures and said to be partakers of the Divine Nature For whereas the Papists would argue as they think very strongly for our Justification by inherent Righteousness from the parallel made between Adam and Christ As say they we are made sinners not by imputation onely but by inherency through Adam's disobedience so we must be made righteous by Christ not by imputation but inherently We retort the Argument and say Because Adam's sin is imputed tous wherby we are made sinners so Christs obedience is made ours whereby we are constituted righteous Yet we grant further That by Christ we are made inherently righteous though by that we are not justified and this inward renovation comes not from Christ by example but a powerfull and secret transformation of the whole man so that as to partake of Adam's sinne we must be born naturally of Adam For if God should create some men in an extraordinary manner not by natural descent from him they would not have this natural contagion cleaving to them so to partake of Christs Righteousness it 's necessary we must be new born by the Spirit of God Thus you see many Reasons compelling us to understand the manner how by Adam 's disobedience we are made sinners to be by natural Propagation For if this foundation be not laid sure the whole fabrick will quickly fall to the ground We come then to the Observation which is SECT II. THat all mankind by Adam 's disobedience are truly and properly made sinners The Text is so clear that we would wonder any should be so deluded as to confront the Truth contained therein Every one that is naturally born of Adam is thereby and in that respect made a sinner though he should have no actual transgessions of his own An Infant that liveth not to be guilty of any actual evil yet because Adam's seed is thereby made a sinner and so a child of Gods wrath Certainly the Apostle would not have been so large and industrious in affirming this Truth But because of the evident necessity to know it and the great utility that may come to us if duly improving this knowledge To be sure he layeth this as a foundation to exalt and magnifie the grace of God by Christ So that they who deny this original contagion must needs rob Christ and his grace of the greatest part of that glory due to him CHAP. VII Of the Souls inward filth and defilement by Adam's Sinne. SECT I. TO explain this profound and weighty Truth consider that expression in the Doctrine That we are by Adam 's disobedience made truly and properly sinners For there are those that hold we receive much hurt Yea some say we are guilty by Adam's disobedience but not made truly and properly sinners they deny there is any inward pollution upon the soul of man When I had proceeded farre in this Discourse of Original Sinne there cometh out an English Writer Dr J. Taylor Vnum Neces in a triumphing and scornfull style like Julian of old peremptorily opposing this Doctrine of inherent pollution by nature He is not meerly Pelagian Arminian Papist or Socinian but an hotchpotch of all So that as there were a Sect of Philosophers as Laertius reports Proem in fin that was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they would chuse out some opinions from all the Sects that were So doth this man most unhappily sometimes select what is most deformed in those several parties With this Writer we shall encounter as often as we find him throwing earth into the pure springs Although the word Sinner in some places is as much as to be an offender to be obnoxious to punishment yet in this place we must understand more as is to be shewed For there are three things we are subject to by Adam's disobedience First There is a participation of the very actual transgression of Adam that very sinne he committed is imputed to us Secondly There is the guilt of this sinne whereby Adam was obnoxious to death and eternal condemnation this also we partake of Lastly There was the deprivation of Gods Image the loss of that upon Adam's transgression so that his soul which was before full of light and a glorious harmony upon this disobedience became like a chaos and confusion And in this state we are born not succeeding Adam in the Image of God he once had but in that horrible confusion and darknesse he was plunged into These three things then we partake of by Adam's disobedience but that which is chiefly intended here and which also my purpose is to treat of chiefly is That inward filth and defilement we are fallen into by Adam 's sin SECT II. 1. THerefore when it is said That we are made sinners by Adam this is not all as if thereby we were put into a necessity of dying or that death is now made a curse to us For thus much the Socinians grant That Adam's sinne did hurt us thus farre That although death was natural to Adam even in the state of integrity yet it was not made necessary nor penal but upon Adam's disobedience But 1. This is false That death would have been natural to Adam though he had not sinned as is to be shewed And In the second place Death as a curse or as made necessary is not all that we are obnoxious unto by Adam's sinne for the Apostle makes that a distinct effect of his disobedience for he sheweth That by Adam's offence sinne did first pass over the whole world and after sin death So that to be a sinner is more than to be obnoxious to death for the Apostle distinguisheth these two Besides why should death fall upon all mankind for Adams sin if so be that that offence was not made every mans and all had not sinned in him Indeed Chrysostom of old expounds this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to punishment and death as if to be sinners were no more than to be mortal Though Chrysostom in some places seemeth not to hold original sinne yet in other places he is expresly for it This Interpretation of Chrysostoms is received by the English Author above-mentioned with much approbation as if to be a sinner were to be handled and dealt with as an offender But the Apostle maketh sinne and death two distinct things the one a consequent from the other because we are sinners we do become mortal Besides to be a sinner is opposite to be righteous in the Text If then that signifie an inherent qualification denominating truly righteous this must also an inherent corruption whereby we are truly made sinners So that this Interpretation hath no probability Yea from Chrystom himself on the place we may have a Consutation of this Exposition For saith he one to be made mortal by him of whom he is born is not absurd but by anothers
the very first yeeld themselves up to the Devil but they did repell the Devils temptations awbile neither was it the inordinate desire of the forbidden fruit that was his first sinne but pride and unbelief not believing the threatnings of God and affecting to be like God and such sinnes do quickly and easily penetrate into the best and noblest subjects as you see in the Angels themselves those sublime and admirable spiritual substances yet how quickly did such kind of sinnes enter into them and defile them all over So that we are to look to those spiritual secret sinnes which did induce Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit Lastly It 's objected by them and the same Argument also is improved by Bellarmine That man consisting of a soul a spiritual substance and of a body which is a sensible corporeal substance when these two are united in one person it 's impossible but the spiritual part should incline one way and the sensitive another The rational part that desireth a spiritual good and the sensitive part that which is sensible and these are contrary But the answer is that though these inclinations are divers yet they are not contrary but where sin hath made an Ataxy As God at first ordained the will which is appetitus rationalis to follow the understanding so he did also our affections to follow both of them so that there was an essential subordination of the affectionate part to the rational even as we see the members of the body do readily move at the command of the soul or as in perfect mixt bodies though there be contrary qualities yet by the temperament of that body their contrariety is removed and certainly the Angels sinned who yet had not any sensitive appetite to rebell against the rational therefore it was not from this necessarily that Adam did sinne Thus in Christ there was no repugnancy between grace and nature for when he said Father if it be possible let this Cup passe away This was not an absolute desire of his humane nature but a conditional one and still with submission therefore he addeth Neverthelesse thy will be done and the Saints in Heaven when they shall have re-assumed their bodies will not find any contrariety between the rational and sensitive appetite And thus you see that Adam was created in this holy estate Lastly This holiness and righteousness in a well explained sense was not supernatural but natural The Remonstrants they make this dispute about original righteousnesse inepta absurda absurd and foolish Therefore they deny any infused or concreated habits also and say The rectitude of the faculties was enough But the Orthodox say Adam could not be created without such habits or principles of holinesse within him because he was created for the enjoyment of God and therefore they call it natural not as flowing from the principles of nature but as a moral condition necessary to qualifie him for his end and therefore it was given to whole mankind in Adam and would have been naturally propagated and whereas the Remonstrants ask To what purpose or use is such original righteousnesse For if it did not necessarily and immutably determine Adams will to good than this original righteousnesse did need another and so in infinitum or if it did then How came it about that Adam did sinne To this subtilty it is answered That this original righteousnesse was not to determine the will of Adam necessarily but to incline and sortifie Adams will the more strongly and easily to do what was good So that although it did not absolutely take away Adams mutability and liberty yet it did heighten and raise up the faculties of his soul to what was good yet this was not a superadded grace to Adam as actual confirmation in holines would have been but a natural and due qualification preparing him for communion with God So that the discourse about man in his pure naturals without this original righteousnesse is an house that hath not so much as a sandy foundation it being without any foundation at all God having put his Image into man as Phydias did his into Minerva's shield that none could take that out but he must also destroy that shield Thus the Devil could not prevail with Adam to sinne but by the losse of Gods Image CHAP. XII A further Consideration of the Image of God which Man was created in Shewing what particular Graces Adam's Soul was adorn'd with SECT I. WE are discovering the Nature of that Image God created us in at first that so we may see how great our losse is The last particular was The naturality and supernaturality of it in divers respects And this is the more to be observed because while the Orthodox oppose the Socinians who affirm Nothing but a natural and simple innocency in Adam without any infused or concreated habits of holinesse or any thing supernatural in him You would think they joyn with the Papists who dogmatize That all the holinesse Adam had was supernatural Again while the same Orthodox oppose Papists because of this opinion one would think they joyned with the Socinians who say Adam had nothing in him but what was natural whereas the truth consists between these and therefore original righteousnesse was supernatural to Adam if you respect the principle from whence it did flow it was immediately from God not from principles of nature and this opposeth the Socinian yet if you do consider Adam the subject of this righteousnesse and the end for which he was created so it was a perfection due to him and in that respect called natural otherwise had not God invested mans nature with this and concreated this perfection with him the noblest of visible creatures had been dealt worst with SECT II. YEt in the second place Though this Image of God was natural to Adam yet we must not say that he had nothing supernatural that there was nothing by way of superadded grace to him Even as in Adam although we deny that he was created in pure naturals yet we say that Adam in some respect may be said in Paradise to live an animal life as well as he was created immortal Adam was made free from death he had not any proxim or immediate cause of death yet he was not made immortal as the glorified Saints in Heaven shall be for their bodies are made then spiritual not animal as the Apostle distinguisheth whereas Adam's body was in this sense animal that it did need meat and drink as also it was for generation to procreate and propagate a posterity which argued the animality of Adams body but not the mortality of it as the Socinians say unless we mean such an immortality as our bodies shall have in Heaven Thus though Adam was created immortal upon supposition of his obedience yet that doth not exclude wholly an animal life or natural as the Apostle expresly saith 1 Cor. 15 46. That was not first which is spiritual but that
pledge of theirs The second Reason which is pertinent to my matter in hand is from the Collation between Adam and Christ As Adam was the common root and principle of death to all that come from him so is Christ the common Head of Salvation and Life to all who are of him The Apostle Rom. 5. maketh such a Comparison between Adam and Christ as two common Principles and Heads but to another purpose there it is in respect of spiritual death viz. Sinne by one and Righteousnesse by the other but here it is principally in respect of temporal Death and Resurrection by Christ The Apostle having thus cleared this Truth he then enters into a second Debate viz. itâ—â—eth â—â—eth a corruptible body but it shall be raised an incorruptible one It dieth a natural body but it shall be raised a spiritual Last this Distinction of a natural and spiritual body should seem uncouth and very absurd he asserteth and confirmeth it by Scripture And here again in the second place he taketh up a Collation between the first Adam and the second and therein we have them compared 1. In regard of their Condition and State 2. In respect of their Originals And 3. In respect of their Qualities and Properties This illustration the Apostle is large in because the strength of his Argument lieth in this Such as the Principles are such are the Effects Such as the Root is such are the Branches Now all men have from Adam earthly mortal bodies which will die Therefore all that are Christs shall have from him heavenly and spiritual bodies Let us diligently open the particulars wherein we have this Collation between Adam and Christ made for from hence we shall have a fair occasion to examine How from Adam we come thus to have his Image upon us which is the great difficulty in the Doctrine of original sinne SECT II. THe first particular therefore wherein they are compared is Adam's estate is proved from Scripture ver 5. As it is written The first man Adam was made a living soul we have this related Gen. 2. 7. where God is said Adam's body being made out of the dust and formed thencefrom was yet without life and motion therefore God did with him farre otherwise than with bruit beasts for He breathed into him the breath of life This is spoken after the manner of men in a figurative way we are not to think God took on him the form of a man and so breathed life into Adam Neither may we say This was a particle or part of the divine Essence which God communicated to man But the meaning is God inspired into him his soul which gave life and sense and motion to the body by which he becoming a living soul that is a living creature This is Adam's condition But as for Christ who is here called the last Adam Adam because a common Person and last because there is no more to succeed him This last Adam is said To be made a quickening Spirit not but that Christ was man yea and had such an humane Nature as Adam had like to him in all things Sinne onely excepted But this is spoken of Christ principally after his Resurrection For Christ while he lived on earth had an animal body he needed food and rest but after his Resurrection then he had a spiritual body so that it is in reference to this that Christ is called a Spirit but with this Epithete A quickning Spirit that is which giveth life to others He hath not only life in himself but he giveth it also to others and therefore no wonder if he raise those that belong to him But seeing Christ is thus a quickening Spirit it may be said Why then have the people of God their natural bodies still If they be in the second Adam Why are they not as he is To this the Apostle answereth verse 46. That which is natural is first and afterwards that which is spiritual It is the will and appointment of God that the imperfect things should be first and afterwards that which is more perfect In the next place The Comparison is made between the two Adams in respect of their Originals The first was of the earth earthly his body was made of the dust of the earth The Aegyptians had some confused knowledge of this and therefore defined man to be Animal terrenum è limo natum Hence in their Feasts they offered unto their gods an herb that grew in their lakes to signifie what man was But the second man is the Lord from Heaven This place hath an appearance of some difficulty for from this Text did some Anabaptists who revived an old Heresie viz. That Christ had not his body of the Virgin Mary indeavour to prove That Christ had his body from Heaven else say they what opposition could there be made to Adam's body Christs body was in the Virgin Mary but not of her as they affirm But this is grosly to mistake For the Apostle doth not intend to make a comparison in the Materials of which both bodies were compounded but the Originals from whence they are The one is from Earth the other from Heaven being the Lord of Heaven and Earth Some indeed have said That Christ is therefore said to be from Heaven because though it was materially of the Virgin Mary yet because the Conception was in an extraordinary manner by the holy Ghost therefore it might be said to be from Heaven This may have some truth yet Adam was in an extraordinary manner and that in respect of his body formed by God called therefore the Sonne of God yet he cannot be said to be from Heaven So that the most solid Interpretation is to understand it of the Person of Christ and so he is wholly of Heaven being the true and eternal God in which respect John 3. 13. he is said to be The Sonne of man which is in Heaven John 6 38 41. he is said To come from Heaven So that although his body was of the Virgin Mary yet as God in which respect he hath his personality so he is from Heaven The third and last Collation is in respect of their qualities and properties The first man is of the earth earthy in a three fold respect 1. Because his affections are only to earthly things 2. Because the place where he is to be is the earth 3. Because of his mortality he is to return to dust again But the ' second Adam is heavenly in a three-fold contrary respect 1. He is heavenly in regard of his life and conversation 2. In regard of the place where now he is sitting in Heaven at the right hand of God and thus all Christs members shall be heavenly for they likewise shall be in Heaven for ever with the Lord. 3. Heavenly Because of his immortality for he shall never die more SECT III. THus we have the Apostles elegant opposition between the first and second Adam and my Text is a
regarded neither is that Exposition to be endured of that late Writer with whom we have so often to do As if the Apostle meant That death relatively to Adams sinne had no effect further then to Moses and there it ceased for this doth palpably contradict the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 22. where by Adam all are said to die Therefore by those who sinne not after the similitude of Adams transgression Some understand it thus viz. not so capitally and atrociously as he did for he sinned against an express Law but the Apostle speaketh of such who sinned without such a declared Law as Hos 6. 7. They like men have transgressed in the original like Adam Many Expositors make it the proper name of Adam hereby the Prophet aggravating their sin That as Adam in Paradise did voluntarily transgress Gods Law So the Jews in the good Land God had given them did treacherously against him But Mercer rejecteth this because in the Hebrew it is not Câ—hadam with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 emphatical as it is commonly applied to Adam There is such an expression in Job which some understand of Adam Job 31. 33. where it is translated If I covered my transgressions as Adam or as in the margin After the manner of men This interpretation may be admitted as part but 2. we are to understand it more largely of all those who sinne without a Law revealed for the Apostle had said That sinne is not imputed viz. to a mans conscience where there is no Law men are apt to be secure in sinne when there is no Law expresly threatning them Now saith the Apostle let none think so For as death so sinne was in the world before Moses his time though there was not such severe precepts against it and therefore those who had not such an express command as Adam had yet death and sinne was imputed to them So that by this is understood That all those who live out of the Church all Heathens and Pagans who have not the revealed will of God to walk by even those who never heard of Adam and so could not imitate him in sinning are in this clause comprehended Lastly By this also is declared That all Infants though they cannot actually sinne yet because of original sinne death reigneth over them likewise Though Calvin think the former sort chiefly aimed at yet he confesseth Infants are herein included Thus we have finished this Text the Doctrine whereof should make the world a valley of tears in respect of godly humiliation as it is indeed in respect of miseries As the shadow followeth the body so should holy sorrow the truth of this point Believe it and tremble for it is every ones case she out of thy self to that Saviour who delivereth from original sinne as well as actual This is most properly the sinne of the world CHAP. IX The Qualities or Adjuncts of Original Sinne. SECT I. The Text explained GEN. 8. 21. And the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth I Have formerly treated on that parallel Text to this Gen. 6. 5. but wholly to another purpose Though therefore this be of great affinity with the former yet I shall deliver altogether new matter from it From the two-fold Subject of original sinne of Inhesion and Predication I proceed to the consideration of the Qualities and Adjuncts of it and begin with this Text which containeth a gracious promise from God never to bring such an universal deluge or any other general judgement upon the world for mans sake any more This promise is made a consequent of Gods Reconciliation with Noah upon whose Sacrifice it is said God smelled a sweet savour speaking after the manner of men not that God did regard the material Sacrifice for the smell of that must needs be distastfull and unsavoury but because Noah did it with a pure and holy heart and withall chiefly because this Sacrifice of Noah was typical of Christs sacrificing himself in time by whom alone God becometh propitious For Christs offering up of himself is said to be Ephes 5. 2. A Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour which was chiefly in the Eucharistical Sacrifices not that Christs death is compared to them only as the Socinians would have it but principally and chiefly to the Expiatory Sacrifices as appeareth in the Epistle to the Hebrews only in Christs death there was that which was in Eucharistical Offerings a sweet savour unto God whereby he became propitious unto mankind God being thus graciously pleased we have this promise of God declared in the Text wherein is considerable First The Cause of it and that is Gods Deceree The Lord said in his heart that is an expression after the manner of men For you must not conceive of God as changing his mind or altering his purposes upon better considerations or as if he took up a contrary resolution to that when he intended to destroy the world but this is wholly spoken to our capacity By this is meant no more then Gods purpose and secret Decree which yet he manifested to the comfort of Noah and therefore we have Moses recording of it Secondly There is the object matter of this promise and that is two-fold I will not curse the ground neither will I smite any more every living thing as I have done God cursed the ground at first upon Adam's fall but this is meant of the Deluge as appeareth by the other particular for by that general floud it is conceived the ground was made worse then before The meaning then is That God will not bring any more universal judgement not but that particular Towns or Nations may be consumed by water or other punishments but there shall not be such a general one by water any more no nor any general punishment For what comfort would it have been to Noah if that the world should be preserved only from drowing if it might have been destroyed any other way Therefore when at the Day of Judgement the whole world shall either be destroyed or renewed by fire that will not be so much by way of punishment to the inhabitants as to change its use and to prepare for the great alteration that God is then to make Thirdly There is the aggravation of this mercy God will do this Though the imagination of mans heart be evil This clause is to be considered first as a Reason then Absolutely in it self If as a reason then here is the difficulty taken notice of how it can be made the ground why God will not destroy the world seeing formerly Chap. 6. 5. it is there made the only reason why he would destroy it can it be the motive for two contrary effects Some therefore do not make it a reason at all but part only of the description of Gods promise he will not destroy the earth again for this sinfull disposition but
to say so But Austin answereth It 's therefore called two wils or therefore it is said to will and nill because it doth will sickly and faintly It 's not so throughly and totally carried out to God as it ought to be and this halting like that of Jacobs thigh will go with us to the grave Thus we are as weak men that are partly well and partly sick as the twy-light when it is partly light and partly darkness or as wine mingled with water not that in such a mixture we are able to say this part is water and the other part is meer wine So we must not think that in a regenerate man one part is meerly spiritual the other meerly carnal but the corruption in a man doth adhere to every part that is sanctified and therefore as the principle is mixed so are the actions which flow from it But it is time to hasten to the last Proposition which is ¶ 10. Of the Regenerates Freedome from the Dominion of sinne And whether it be by the Suppression of it or by the Abolishing part of it THat though original sinne be in a regenerate person yet it is not in its dominion there it is in part abolished For there are these things to be considered in this inbred defilement there is 1. The Guilt 2. The Dominion and both these are removed in a regenerate person 3. There is the sense or presence of it and that is not taken away but by death 4. Some adde the Root of it and that they say is not destroyed till the body be consumed to ashes For although it be true that death putteth an end to all sinne yet that must be understood of an ultimate and final death otherwise if it be a dispensatory death as it was to Lazarus and some others as that did not put a period to their bodily miseries when they lived again so neither did it to sinfulness in their souls But even Lazarus and such like persons raised upon a special economy were regenerated but in part and this conflict of flesh and Spirit was in them and so they needed to pray for forgiveness of sinne But though we must acknowledge that original sinne hath not the power in a godly man it once had All the difficulty is Whether it be by suppression of it onely or abolishing part of it and if original sinne be in part diminished How can the whole of it be propagated to the child Or why may not the last part of it be consumed in this life It may be this Question may be more subtil then profitable Scotus as Pererius alledgeth him in Rom. cap. 7. thinketh that in a godly man original sinne is not at all abated onely grace is every day augmented and so that cannot weigh us down as it did before As saith he if an Eagle should have any weight upon her but the strength of her wings be increased then though the weight were not diminished yet because her strength is increased it would not hinder her in flying But to answer this Question we must conclude that in regeneration original sinne is more then suppressed there is a qualitative change and so a diminishing of darknesse in the mind by light of evil in the will by holinesse So that the encreasing of these graces do necessarily argue the decreasing of original sinn And For this purpose the Scripture useth those termes of crucifying and mortifying onely when we say original sinne is diminished You must not understand it hath quantative parts as if they were cut off by degrees but potestative that is the power and efficacy of original sinne is not so lively so vehement as it was once yet where it is thus weakned a regenerate person begetteth a sonne in an unregenerate estate because he is the sonne of Adam fallen and is not a father as he is godly but as he is a man Now though it doth thus tenaciously adhere unto us yet death will give it a final and full blow not death meerly as it is a dissolution in a natural way so that Castellio doth absurdly endeavour to perplex this Doctrine with curious interrogatories but as the nature of it is altered by Christ the Spirit of God putting forth its greatest efficacy at that time Yea though a godly man should be so overcome by a disease that he were not able to act faith in Christ at that time for the utter subduing of sinne in him yet his faith formerly put forth on Christ for that purpose and the promise of God at that time will effectually conquer all This being so how ought the godly gladly to submit to death The terrible vizour of it is now taken away No vain thoughts no wordly or distempered affections shall ever molest thee more It is not death to thee but to thy sinne It is not a death to thy graces and comforts but to thy corruptions Miseria non home moritur said the Martyr when he was to die It is misery not man that dieth CHAP. IV. Of Death coming upon all men as another Effect of Original Sinne. SECT I. The Text explained 1 COR. 15. 22. For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive THe chief scope of the Apostle in this Chapter as was formerly declared from the 49th verse is to establish that fundamental and necessary Article of the Resurrection of the dead which because of the incredibility of it to meer humane reason was much derided by the Heatheus and Paul for the preaching thereof was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 17. 18. A trifling babler Hence because of the difficulty to receive this truth Synesius was ordained Bishop though as yet not perswaded of the Doctrine which afterwards by the grace of God towards him he did acknowledge Yea it 's observed That the Philosophers when made Christians received this as the last Article of their Christian faith because so contrary to those Philosophical principles they had been accustomed unto The Sadduces also denied this main Article but they might be supposed to do it upon corrupt grounds futable to their lusts for being though not so numerous nor so applauded for piety by the people as the Pharisees were yet for the most part the richest and most wealthy they imbraced that opinion which denied the Resurrection as being more convenient for their carnal hearts and that they might with more delight and security give themselves up to this present world But the Apostle doth here most industriously and powerfully confirm this Doctrine which if not true all our Christian Religion would be in vain The principal Argument to prove this Doctrine is from the Resurrection of Christ For the rising as our Head it necessarily followeth his members should also rise to such glory and immortality So that Christs Resurrection doth necessarily inferre outs which made the primitive Christians so affected with it that in their ordianry salutations whenmeeting with one another they did use to
say Christus resurrexit Christ is risen For this end Christ is called The first fruit of them that slept vers 20. As the first fruits did sanctifie the whole harvest of corn that was afterwards to be gathered So did Christ rising all his members by his Resurrection assuring them of theirs Hence it is that the Apostles Arguments are not to prove the Resurrection of wicked men for they arise upon another account but onely of the godly who are his members and have an interest in his mediation It is indeed a Dispute Whether even wicked men do not rise by the virtue of Christs merit and his Resurrection Baldwine for determining the negative in locum is traduced by another Lutheran for Popery and Calvinism as introducing that Doctrine of the particularity of Christs death But certainly The wicked mans resurrection is not to be accounted in the number of any mercies and therefore not merited by Christ Hence it followeth necessarily that they rise not by any relation to Christ but by the power and justice of God because of that immutable and unchangeable Decree that every sinner unrepenting shall die both temporally and eternally which later could not be accomplished unlesse the bodies of wicked men were raised up to life again out of the dust Now our Apostle to prove Christ the cause of our Resurrection draweth an Argument from a comparison between Adam and him making them two originals and fountains but of contrary effects the one of death the other of life For as in Adam all die so in Christ all shall be made alive Not that all men universally shall be saved by Christ but the universal particle must be limited according to the subject matter in hand All that are in Christ all that are his members shall be made alive by him And therefore in the next verse it is so limited Christ the first-fruits and afterwards they that are Christs at his coming So that the sense is That as all Adams posterity die because of him so all that are Christs seed shall live by him For the expression in Adam and in Christ do denote a causality in them the one of death the other of life Therefore we must not think that the Apostle doth here only make a bare similitude and comparison shewing that as by Adam we die so by Christ we shall be made alive but it 's an Argument from the power and causality that is in one to the other The Apostle doth in the fifth of the Romans make the like comparison only there is this difference as Calvin observeth In that place the Apostle maketh the comparison chiefly in respect of spiritual effects death as it brings condemnation and life as it is accompanied with justification here and glorification hereafter This Text is greatly agitated in the controversie between Puccius and Socinus Vide Disput de statu primi hominis ante lapsum The former holding truly though he superaddeth many gross errors that Adam was not made mortal and that death came in only by sinne only he goeth absurdly beyond his bounds when he holdeth the beasts were also made immortal The later on the contrary he holdeth That Adam was made mortal that death in natural that though by sinne we are under a perpetual necessity of death which is an ambiguous phrase he useth yet death it self is natural He granteth That immature and violent death cometh by sinne but death as it is a meer dissolution of a person so it is from his primitive creation and constitution Therefore be would have this difference between the Text I am upon and Paul's Discourse in the fifth of the Romans viz. That there indeed he speaketh of the sinne of Adam by which we come to die But here he would have the Apostle consider Adam as he is by Creation and that being mortal from the beginning we also are mortal from him But who can perswade himself that these passages concerning the change of the body hereafter to what it is now It is sown in corruption it 's raised in corruption it is sowen in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sowen in weaknesse it is raised in power are to be understood of our bodies as at the first Creation and not as they are now by Adam's fall Our bodies are made corruptible and vile bodies by reason of sinne We must then understand the Apostle as speaking of Adam sinning though sinne be not here named So that the fifth of the Romans will excellently illustrate this place and that maketh the sense to be That Adam sinning by his sinne death entered upon all mankind so that death is not natural neither doth it arise from our first constitution but it cometh in wholly by sinne SECT II. Death an Effect of Original Sinne explained in divers Propositions HAving then heretofore spoken of some spiritual effects of original sinne and more might be named such as a necessity to sinne an impotency to all good senslesness and stupidity therein the aldom to Satan but I shall pass them by as being very proper to the Common-place of Divinity which is of the grace of God and mans free-will and shall proceed to the effects of original sinne that are of another nature and that is temporal and eternal death The former effects did so slow from original sinne as that also they are sinfull properties in a man but these are meerly punishments It is not our sinne that we are sick that we die but it is the effect From the words then we observe this truth and doctrine That death cometh upon all mankind because of our sinne we have originally from Adam It is true the Socinian will say We put more in the Doctrine then is in the Text but you heard the comparison used by the Apostle in the fifth of the Romans compared with this doth necessarily suppose death to be because of Adam's sinne not only as imputed unto us but because thereby we are made inherently sinfull This truth is of a very vast compasse but I shall consine my self within as narrow bounds as may be I shall follow my usual method to explicate this in several Propositions ¶ 1. FIrst This controversie about mans mortality is very famous in the Church and hath been of old solliciously disputed The Pelagians as they denied original sinne so consonantly to that falshood they affirmed That death was not the punishment of sinne but did arise by the necessity of our natural constitution Which Assertion was condemned by some Councils and the Laws of Emperours as injurious to God the Creator of men For this experience that Infants new born are subject to many miseries and death it self was a thorn in their sides which they could not endure in nor yet possibly pull out Sometimes with the Stocks they would deny death to be an evil Sometimes they would say Children in the womb are guilty of actual sinnes for which they deserved death but that which they did most constantly adhere
which would have redounded to the dishonour of God his maker neither could it so well be said By one man or by the Devil death came into the world as by God who is supposed to make man in such a mortal and frail estate But I proceed to a second Argument and that may be drawn from the commination made by God to Adam upon his disobedience compared with the execution of this sentence afterward which might be enough to convince any though never so refractory The threatning to Adam we have recorded Gen. 2. 17. where God prohibiting him to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil confirmeth this Law with a penalty viz. That in the day he did eat thereof he should surely die dying thou shalt die The gemination is to shew the certainty as also the continuance or it So that Socinus and others who would not understand corporal death in this place as being from the natural constitution of a man and so would have been had there not been this commination doth joyn too much with the Devil in this business for his endeavour was to perswade the woman that this threatning was false and that she should not die death should not be the punishment of her transgression But what need we any clearer place then this divine commination Doth not this necessarily suppose that if Adam had not transgressed he should not have died and so by consequence have been immortal it being not possible for death to come in at any other door but that of sinne To threaten a mortal man with mortality had been absurd or to make his natral condition a punishment for then it would have been a punishment to be made a man if made mortal The Socinians therefore to elude this would not understand by death the separation of the soul and body but eternal death or as they say at other times a necessity of dying but a necessary death and eternal death are absurdly made parallel by them For beasts are under a necessity of death yet cannot be said to partake of eternal death especially the godly they cannot but die yet they are absolutely delivered from eternal death We must therefore take death for corporal death not but that the death of the soul by sinne here and eternal separation from God hereafter is to be included herein yet this temporal death is also a great part of the penalty here threatned which may be evinced by these three reasons 1. Moses is relating in an historical manner what was done to man in the beginning Now in an historical Narration we are not to go from the literal meaning unless evident necessity compel much lesse may we do so here when we have the Apostle acted by the same Spirit of God as Moses was in being Penman of the Scripture attributing our corporal death to Adam For no doubt when Paul wrote this Text In Adam we all die he had this historical relation made by Moses in his mind 2. The sentence and execution of it must be understood in the same manner Now it 's plain that in the execution of it mentioned Chap. 3. 19. corporal death is meant because Adam is thus told That dust he was and unto dust he should return 3. It must be meant of temporal death because this alone and not eternal death doth belong to all mankind For although at the day of judgement it is said some shall not die yet that suddain change made then upon them will be equivalent to death Thus you see the threatning made to Adam at first doth abundantly confirm this truth There is one doubt only to be answered If death be meant in that sentence how then is it that Adam did not immediately die How is it that he lived many hundred years afterwards To this some say That the restriction of time viz. the day is not to be made to the time of eating as if at that day he should die but to death as if the sense were thou shalt die one day or other thou shalt be in daily fear of death But if this be disliked then we may understand it of a state of death that day he did eat thereof he became mortal for every day is a diminution of our life As a man that hath received a deadly wound we say he is a dead man because though he did linger it out yet all is in a tendency unto death Now this will appear the more cogent if you take notice of the execution of this sentence mentioned Gen. 3. 17 18 19. where the ground is cursed and man also adjudged to labour and wearness all the dayes of his life even till he return to the ground out of which he was made But here the Socinian thinketh he hath an evasion Death saith he is not here made a curse but only it 's the term how long mans curse shall be upon him It is not poena but terminus saith he for it is said he should be under this labour till he did return to the ground but if we consider the sentence before-mentioned it is plain it is a curse So that in this place it is both a curse and a terme putting an end to all the temporal miseries of this life though to the wicked it is the beginning of eternal torments ¶ 3. THe third Argument for our mortality and also actual death by original sinne is taken from those assertory places which do in expresse words say so Not to mention my sext which hath said enough to this truth already We may take notice of other places affirming this And certainly that passage of Pauls Rom. 5 12. may presently come into every mans mind By one man sin entred into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned It is true we told you Calvin maketh the Apostle to speak of spiritual death here as in my Text of temporal death which the coherence also doth confirm but though that be principally intended yet not totally Even temporal death is likewise to be understood as being the beginning and introduction to eternal death if the grace of God doth not prevent We have then the Apostle attributing death not to mans creation at first but to his disobedience Neither is this death upon men because of their actual sinnes but because of Adam's disobedience by whom we are made sinners yea in whom we have sinned That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is diversly translated and much contention about it viz. whether it should be rendred in whom or causally for as much It is true the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as learned men observe is used in the New Testament variously sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 5. 5. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 10. 9. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 3. 16. and otherwise but for ought I can observe it may very well be understood for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mark
demonstrate how it stands between Adam and as The first is Psal 106. 32 33. They angred him also at the waters of strife so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes Because they provoked his Spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips Here was saith he plainly a traouction of evil from the Nation to Moses their relative for their sakes he was punished but yet forasmuch as Moses himself had sinned But surely we may here say Behold a new thing under the Sunne This was scarce ever heard of before in the Church of God so that it 〈◊〉 too much honour to it to confute it yet something must be said lest words prevail and similitudes when reasons cannot Not to meddle with any large explication of that passage in the Psalm If we consult with Bellarmize and Genebrard this place will no wayes serve his turn For Bellarmine inlocum would have the 33. verse not to contain any sinne of Moses as it he spake unadvisedly with his lips but referreth that to Gods Decree or Purpose pronounced by his mouth which was to destroy the Nations as it followeth in the next verse which they did not do affirming the Hebrew word cannot be applied to an unadvised speaking or as it is rendred by some ambiguous and doubtfull Neither is it in the Text that God punished Moses for their sakes but as our Translators It went ill with Moses for their sakes And this translation Genebrard taketh notice of as following the Hebrew adding that some expound it not of any punishment God inflicted upon Moses but of that vexation trouble and grief which he had because of their murmurings and rebellings against him And it this be so then here is not so much room for his opinion as to set the sole of its feet But let it be granted That Moses was occasionally punished by the Israelites rebellion for his own sinne For who can deny but that God doth sometimes take an occasion from some mens sinnes to punish others for their own sinnes as the Hebrews have a saying especially when related to one another That in every punishment they undergo there is an ounce of that Calf which Aaron made as if God did from that take an occasion to punish the Israelites for their other transgressions yet this is no parallel to our case in hand for here the Israelites were an occasion to make Moses sinne for which God was so angry with him that he was not suffered to enter into the Land of Canan But we are now speaking of men who are punished by death that yet never were occasioned to sinne by Adam in the Adversaries sense For the people of Israel were present with Moses and by their froward carriages did provoke him to that sinfull passion but Adam hath been dead some thousands of years since Who can say It is Adam that stirreth me up it is Adam that will not let me alone but compelleth me to sinne Yea how can Heathens and Pagans be said to sinne occasionally by Adam when they happily never heard that there was such a man in the world Besides Infants they are subject to death What actual sinne doth Adam produce the occasion of to them If then Adam were now alive and Infants could be tempted to actual sinnes as Meses was by the Israelites then there had been more probability of his instance But it may be his second example will be more commensurated to our purpose and that is from 1 King 14 16. where it 's said God would give Israel up because of the sinnes of Jeroboam who did sinne and made Israel to sinne Thus saith he alluding to the words of the Apostle By one man Jeroboam sinne went out into all Israel and the curse captivity or death by sinne and so death went upon all men of Israel inasmuch as all men of Israel have sinned But this is wholly to give up the cause to Pelagians whose glosse yet of imitation he utterly rejecteth though much more that which affirmeth we are made properly and formally sinners by him Answer to a Letter pag. 54. For how did Jereboam make all Israel sinne was not by his example and in the fame sinne of Idolatry as he did Now do we follow Adam in eating of the for bidden fruit and so offend God in the same sinne as he did So that this was wholly by imitation and therefore one generation did transmit this sinne to anotherly example till at last there was no more mention of it But did Adam thus offend and then Cain and others follow him in the like sinne He cannot then wash his hands from the Pelagian Doctrine of original sinne from Adam only by imitation if he adhere to this inftance Again Jeroboam is said to make Israel sinne for some time only while his memory and example had some influence and it was the sinne of the Israelites only for many separated themselves from him and went into the kingdom of Judah that so they might not be polluted with that worship as appeareth 1 Chron. 11. 14. 16. whereas Adam's sinne bringeth death upon all mankind and this will endure to the end of the world for the Apostle saith in the Text In Adam all die Besides This Author gresly contradicts himself for at one time he saith God was sâ— angry for Adam's sinne that he indeed punished men with death yet but till Moses his time and then death came upon a new accout At other times he makes it a punishment of all men because of Adam's sinne And indeed the Text we are upon doth evidently enforce this Furthermore Death is said to reign over all markind to passe on all and are not Infants part of the world It is true he saith Children and Ideots that cannot commit actual sinnes death is no punishment to them they die in their nature but if there had been no sinne how could there have been ideots and children that die in their Infancy Certainly that must be an immature death Now although it be said That death is a conlequent of nature yet immature death must needs be a punishment of sinne for so this Auther answereth that Text Death is the wages of sinne The Apostle saith he primarily and â—terally means the solemnâ—â—es and causes and infelicines and 〈◊〉 of temporal death and not meerly the dissolution which is direct no evil but an in let to a better state Answ to a Letter pag. 87 〈…〉 this discourse of the occasionality of death by Adam 's sinne is 〈…〉 meer non-us and fancy of his own will appear by the opposite to Adam 〈◊〉 comparision with Christ What was Christ onely the occasion of our righteousness and life Did God from Christs obedience take the occasion only 〈…〉 us for our own obedience who seeth not the absurdity of this Though therefore he doth superâ—â—â—usly overlook Calvin Knox and the Scoich Presbyterics in this point yet I suppose he will bearken with more reverence to what the late Annotatour saith
confront the Scripture which attributeth condemnation and 〈…〉 to this sinne because of the intrinsecal evil and hainousness thereof The essence is of one to condemnation saith the Apostle Rom 5. and the Text saith we are by nature the children of wrath Besides this is a ridiculous and absurd 〈◊〉 for original sinne is nothing but the spiritual death of the soul and doth wholly destroy that respect and habitude which the soul had unto God Father this Popish evasion is of no strength with us who hold no venial sinnes in their sense For they say a man may be damned in hell for venial sins not because they of their own nature deserve so but because of the subject sometimes who may die destitute of all grace and then his venial sinnes encrease his condemnation But this Doctrine of a venial sinne in the Popish sence is immediately opposite to Scripture and contrary to the Majesty of the most holy God Conclus 2. In that original sinne is thus meritotious of eternal damnation Those learned men who hold the corrupt Mass of mankind to be that state out of which God chooseth some to eternal life leaving others in this wretched and sinfull condition they have by Adam do thereby affirm nothing injurious to God or any thing that may justly be complained of by sound reason It is not my intent to launch into that vast Ocean of the dispute about the object of election and reprobation no not as it is confined among the orthodox they themselves disputing whether it be Massa para or Massa corrupta from whence ariseth that distinction of Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians It is enough at the present to affirm that if the corrupt Mass of mankind be made the object of election and reprobation the justice of God is abundantly cleared against all Papists Arminians and others in this particular because original sinne doth deserve eternal damnation This was the opinion of Austin and many moderate learned men think this opinion less obnoxious to cavils and more consonant to Scripture then that of those who hold Gods decrees herein to be supposing Massa pura or man considered as man meerly in a common sense Thus God speaketh of hating Esau and loving Jacob in respect of his purpose according to election and that before they had done good or evil Rom 9 11. which relateth to their actual evil Yea this was Calvins opinion as appeareth Lib 1. de eterna Dei predestinatione contra Pighium alledged by Crakanthorpe Defens Eccles Anglic. cap. 37. where Calvin saith when we treat of predestination Vnde exordiendum esse semper docui atque bodie doceo jure in morte relinqui omnes reprobos qui in Adam mortui sunt damnati jure parice qui naturâ sunt filii irae ita nemini causam esse cur de nimio Dei rigore quâ—ratur quando reatum in se omnes inclusum gestant Thus Calvin And how orthodoxly and vehemently doth Crakanthorpe though of the Episcopal judgement defend this Potestne quisquam saith he te Spalâ—to quisquam ex vestris Dei justitiam in damnandis reprobis luenlentiùs asserere In Adamo in massâ perditirei omnes mortis eorum alios ex istâ Massâ per misericordiam liberat alios in eâdem Massâ per justitiam damnandos relinquit For Gods election and reprobation is about Infants as well as Adult persons neither may we think it any cruelty or injustice of God if he leave an Infant in his natural impure estate seeing grace is free if it be grace and God is not bound to adde a new favour where the former is lost and although such an Infant had no voluntary personal acting to this corrupt estate he is born in for which God eternally passeth him by with a negative preterition as some Divines express it yet because sinnes in the Scripture-language are called debts that which is just between man and man may be much more between God and man who cannot be any wayes obliged to shew favour to him and that is amongst men children are liable to their parents debts and what their parents did wickedly and voluntarily contract by their prodigality and luxury that the children stand engaged to pay though they had no influence into those supposed debts Thus all mankind stands engaged for Adam's debt I mean as the consequent corruption of his nature by his voluntary disobedience doth hereditarily descend to all his posterity and the rather because it is both aliena and nstra culpa as Bernard both Adam's debt and our own also No wonder then if mankind lying in this bloud God spake to some to live and leaveth the restin their undone estate but I must not enlarge on this When that mutable Euripus and miserable Ecebolius though not crying out afterwards as he did Culcate me insipidum salem Spalatensis had objected this as a puritanical opinion and also the Doctrine of the Church of England That Infants dying with Baptisme may yet be damned Crakanthorpe defendeth the Church of England herein Defens cap. 40 yet with such assertions that cannot please the late Antagonist of original sin Vbi è Scripturis habes Infantes morientes cum Baptismo non posse damnari saith he An tu à Dei consiliâ—s es ut sine Scripturâ hoc scias ut scias tales omnes Infantes electos esse You see he putteth their salvation upon election that are saved concluding indeed that in the judgement of charity we think such may be saved but as for a judicium certitudinis veritatis he doth leave that to God but you must remember he speaketh not of all Infants though of Infidels SECT VIII A Consideration of their Opinion that hold a Universal Removal of the Guilt of Original Sinne from all mankind by Christs Death Answering their Arguments among which that from the Antithesis or Opposition which the Apostle maketh Rom. 5. between the first Adam and the second Adam THirdly In that original sinne is meritorious of eternal condemnation yea and doth produce this effect actually in some Hence that Doctrine so confidently avouched by some that by Christ the guile of original sinne is wholly taken off stom all mankind and every one by nature is now born in a state of Gods love and reconciliation till by actual sinnes be doth exclude himself from this mercy is also an unsavoury opinion and contrary to the Word of God But because this Doctrine is very plausible and hath had confident avouchers of it let us throughly search into all the recesses of it And First We may take notice that Puccius wrote a book for this purpose to prove that as by Adam we were truly properly and de facto put into a state of sinne and wrath and that antecedently to our knowledge or consent so by the second Adam all mankind in the same latitude is put into a state of savour and reconciliation with God properly actually and de facto and that antecedently to any faith or knowledge
depriving us of all spiritual sense and feeling So that by it we are put into this sad perpiexity for none need or are bound more to bewail this sinne than an unregenerate man and yet he cannot send forth the least sigh and groan because of it So that hereby we have contracted such an unavoidable exigency upon us that we cannot turn our selves any way mourn and cry we must for this pollution yet mourn and cry we cannot because this is one inseparable effect of it to take away all tendernesse and mourning Hence the stony heart mentioned by Ezekiel Chap. 11. 18. is in a great measure original sinne Till therefore we are regenerated as we see in David Job and Paul we cannot truly mourn under it Lastly This is a work to do as long as we live Because it 's inseparable from our natures while we live in this world God indeed could in our life time wholly free us from it as well as at death but he lets these reliques continue that our tryumph at the Day of Judgement may be the greater Vivum captivum reservantur ad tryumphum Captives are preserved alive for the greater trymph And the rather God doth this that so even his very Pauls his most eminent and choicest servants may have matter of debasement within themselves and more earnestly groan for a day of Redemption A TREATISE OF Original Sin The Second Part. SHEWING VVhat ORIGINAL SINNE is AND How it is Communicated By Anthony Burgess ANCHORA SPEI LONDON Printed in the Year 1658. A TREATISE OF Original Sinne. PART II. CHAP. I. Of the Name Old-man given to Original Sinne SECT I. ROM 6. 6. Knowing this that our Old-man is crucified with Christ c. IN the beginning of the Chapter the Apostle informeth us That no Gospel priviledges or Evangelical grace amplified to the highest may encourage to sinne for the Apostle maketh an Objection himself from the Doctrine he delivered If grace abound where sinne doth abound then why may not we sinne more that grace may abound more Thus there have alwayes been some who have turned bread into stones and fish into serpents making the grace of God to exclude our duty and a tender care against sinne But the Apostle as if blasphemy were in this Objection tryeth out God forbid You see with what indignation and detestation we should look upon all those Doctrines which under pretence of advancing Grace do cry down Duties and an holy life making it a legal and a servile thing Now the Apostle bringeth an Argument against indulgence in sinne notwithstanding Gods grace Because we are dead to it and then how can we live to it Would it not be a monstrous and an afrighting sight to see dead men come out of their graves to live and walk amongst us Thus also it ought to be no less wonderfull yea terrible to see a Christian give himself to any evil way And that we are dead to sinne he proveth by our Baptism concerning which he speaks admirable and sublime matter So that if we consider what great things are here spoken of it we may wonder to see how cold and rare our meditations are about it for he makes it to be that Sacrament in the right use whereof we put on Christ yea that thereby we are ingraffed and implanted into him Hence ver 5. he useth that word of being planted into him a metaphor from the Husbandman who by planting his Science into another stock doth thereby make it partake of the life or death of the Tree if the Tree liveth that liveth if the Tree dieth that dieth so it is with us and Christ By the phrase then is intended no more than our communion with and interest in Christ and that both in his death and his resurrection For you must know that the Scripture doth not only make Christs death and resurrection to be the cause of the death of our sins and of our spiritual resurrection to holiness but also makes them types and resemblances of such things in us That as Christ died in his passible body so we should die to sinne and as Christ after his death did rise again to glory and immortality thus we should rise out of sinne to walk in newness of life and both these are signified in Baptism 1. Our Communion with Christ in the efficacy of his death and resurrection 2. The Representation of this that what was corporally done to Christ should be spiritually fulfilled in us and therefore some think that the Apostle doth allude to that primitive Rite and Custom which was in baptizing when the baptized party was first put under the water for a little season which represented Christs burial and our death to sinne 2. There was the emersion or rising again out of the waters which signified Christs Resurrection and also our rising again to holiness and godliness This is the Summe of the Apostles discourse concerning Baptism in its sacramental signification which he amplifieth further in my Text and that as a reason why we should not live to sinne who were baptized into Christ viz. Because our Old man is crucified with Christ Both because Christ in being crucified did subdue thereby the dominion of sinne and also we are to do to the body of sinne within us what was done to Christs body to crucifie it and thereby to destroy it There is nothing more to be enquired into in the Text but what is meant by our Oldman They limit it too much that understand it only of the habit or acquired custom of sinne which we live in before Regeneration as Grotius seemeth to understand But we are to take it as both Popish and Protestant Commentators do interpret it for that vicious and corrupt nature which we all derive from Adam putting it self forth into several lusts and ungodly actions wherby there is an habituated inveterated custom at last in sin so that although we may understand lusts and actual impieties with long custom therin under the phrase of the Old man yet principally and chiefly we are to interpret it of that polluted nature we have from Adam and this will easily appear to be so if you consider the other two places where this expression is used Ephes 4. 22. That ye put off the Old man c. and that ye put on the New man Col. 3. 9 10. Ye have put off the Old man with his deeds and have put on the New man Where 1. You see the Old man is distinguished from the effects and deeds of it which are actual sins And then 2. Old man and New man are made two immediate opposites now the New man is plainly expressed by the Apostle what it is viz. not so much actual holiness as the Image of God repaired in us so that as the New man is the Image of God and that holy nature repaired in us so the Old man is the contrary to this viz. a deprivation of that Image of God and and an universal
up against it makes him rage at it as the Apostle doth abundantly testifie in this Chapter he tels us This Law of sinne did warre and fight against the Law of God it did lead him captive it conquered and subdued him against his will If then a godly man find this Law of sinne so powerfull and operative in him No wonder if men wholly carnal and natural they finde the Law of sinne as fully prevailing over them as the Devils did on the herd of Swine which they hurried violently into the sea without any resistance As then the Devil when he possessed some bodies provoked and moved them to many violent and sudden actions which they could not gainsay Thus doth the Law of sinne in men naturally it provoketh it instigateth it turneth the soul upside down it is continually pressing and enclining to evil which makes the Scripture say Gen. 6. That the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart is only evil and that continually Thirdly Original sinne is a Law because by this a man is bound and captivated to the lusts thereof there is an indissoluble union till death Thus the Apostle argueth from the Law of an Husband and his Wife she cannot marry another while her Husband lives Neither can we be married to Christ while this is predominant yea we must die ere we be wholly freed of it Fourthly Original sinne is called a Law of sinne within us because of the injurious command and rule it hath in every man by nature And this indeed is the most explicite and formal reason why it is called a Law for to a Law there is not onely required a directive power for so counsels and admonitions have which are no Laws but there must be also a preceptive and commanding power so that a Law hath vim coactivum a compelling force to have a thing done and in this respect the Apostle gives it this Title of a Law of sinne within us for even in the person of a regenerate man What sad complaints doth he make of this tyrannical power of sinne within him He is not his own man he cannot do what he would yea he doth what he would not insomuch that he cals himself carnal and sold under sinne These expressions are so great that therefore some have thought they could not be applied to a godly man For it is said of Ahab as a sure Character of his wickednesse That he sold himself to do evil 1 Kings 21. 20. but Ahab did that willingly Paul is here passive he is sold against his will because sinne hath such tyranny over him Therefore the afflicted Israelite did not more groan to be delivered from his oppression than Paul crieth out to be delivered from this body of sinne Well therefore may this birth-pollution be called The Law of sinne within us for it ruleth all it commands the whole man what sinne bids us think we think what it bids us do we do No natural man can do othewise The Apostle speaks peremptorily They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8. 7 8. And the carnal minde is not subject to God neithe indeed can be Oh the miserable and unhappy estate we are all then in by this original sinne We cannot but sinne we do not love that which is good neither can we The Law of sinne hath wholly enslaved us Though all the curses of the Law be denounced against us yet we cannot but sinne As venemous creatures cannot vent that which is sweet but necessarily that which is poison yet as Bernard of old said well This necessity in sinning doth not take off from voluntarinesse and delight in it neither doth the delight take off from the necessity Lastly It may be called The Law of sinne saith Aquinas Because it 's that effect of Gods penal Law inflicted upon mankind because of Adam's transgression So that upon Adam 's sinne God hath so ordered that it should be by way of a punishment upon us to be prone unto all evil For as you heard this original sinne is both a sinne and a punishment So that as God hath appointed that every man should die it is a Law that shall never be repealed so likewise that every one born of man in a natural way should be unclean and have a fountain within him daily emptying it self into poisonous streams Vse To be informed whence it is that thy heart is so out of all measure evil whence it is that no godly thing is pleasing to thee whence it is that upon searching into thy heart thou findest a noisom dunghill there that thou art never able to go to the bottom whence it is that lust is so ready at hand alwayes that sinne alwayes appeareth first in thy soul All this is because original corruption is by way of a Law in thee That teacheth to sinne that instigateth to sinne yea that commands and imperiously puts thee on to all manner of evil If you do not feel this heavy thraldome and pressure upon you it is not because it is not there but because thou art dead in sin and hast no feeling of it Solemon speaking of a good woman hath this notable expression Prov. 31. 26. The Law of kindnesse is in her lips The Law of kindnesse she cannot but be loving and friendly in all she saith Now on the contrary The Law of sinne is all over thee The Law of sinne is in thy heart the Law of sinne is in thy mind the Law of sinne is in thy eyes in thy tongue thou canst not but sinne in and by these CHAP. III. Of the Name The Sinne that dwelleth in us given to Original Sinne. SECT I. Of the Combate between the Flesh and Spirit ROM 7. 17. Now then it is no more I that do it but sinne that dwelleth in me THis excellent Chapter which containeth the heart and life of the Doctrine of Original Sinne so that it may be called the Divine Map thereof describing all the parts and extents of it will afford us many testimonies for the confirmation of it We therefore proceed to another name that we find here described to us in this Text viz. The sinne that dwelleth in us The Apostle you heard as we take for granted doth here speak in his own person and so of every regenerate man that there is a conflict and a combate between the flesh and the Spirit In all such there are two Twins strugling in the womb of the soul which causeth much grief and trouble of heart which the Apostle doth in a most palpable and experimental manner relate in this passage vers 15. That which I do I allow not for what I would that I do not but what I hate that I do Now you must understand this aright lest it prove a stumbling blâ—ck For First The Apostle speaks not this as a man meerly convinced but yet carried away with strong corruptions This is not to patrocinate those who live in sinnes against their conscience but have some
in some persons hath a notable expression Psal 5. 9. Their inward part is very wickednesse or wickednesses as in the Hebrew Their inward part is nothing but wickednesse Now although therefore habitual sinnes may truly be called sinnes dwelling in us yet the Apostle doth not speak here of such habitual sinnes for he speaks all along of one sinne as the mother as the fountain and root of all And besides Paul speaking in the person of a regenerate man could not complain of the acquired habits of sinne within him for in Regeneration there is an expulsion of all habitual sinne and in this sense Those that are born of God are said not to sinne viz. habitually and customarily as wicked men do although some actual sins and those of a very hainous nature may consist with the work of grace yet habites of sinne and habits of grace can no more consist together than light and darkness It is evident then that the Apostle not meaning habitual sinne must understand original in the immediate actings and workings of it for this will alwayes be a troublesome and molesting inmate This is not conquered but with the last enemy death it self SECT III. Why Original Corruption is called The Inherent or In-dwelling Sinne. THis premised Let us consider why original corruption is called the Inherent and In-dwelling Sinne and that even in a godly man And first The Apostle cals it the sinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because of the propriety and proper right it hath to us As a man is said to dwell in his house because he hath a right to it and it is his own This original sinne is in every man as in its proper place as the stone doth rest in its center and will not move further So that as hell is said to be the proper place of Judas He went saith the Text to his own place Thus is the heart and soul of a man the proper and fit subject for all the natural impiety that cleaveth to us and therefore though the Devil be also said To rule in the hearts of wicked men he dwels also in them as well as sinne for which he is compared to an armed man keeping the house yet this is more extrinsecal and from without The Devil could not find a room ready swept and garnished for him but because of this native pollution Hence the Apostle doth not in this Chapter complain of the Devil but sin dwelling in him He doth not say I would do good but the Devil hinders me though that be sometimes true but sin dwelling in him Secondly This expression of sinne dwelling in a man denoteth The quiet and peaceable possession it hath in man by nature it dwels there as in its own house nothing to disturb or molest it Hence it is That all things are so quiet in a natural man there is nothing troubles him he is not disquieted in his conscience he feeleth no such burden or weight within him as Paul here complaineth of so that you would think many civil and natural men in a more holy condition than Paul They will thank God They have a good heart and all is quiet within them but this is not because original sinne doth not dwell and live and work in them but because they are sensless and stupid sinne is in its proper place and so there is no trouble and restlesness in their conscience Therefore it s thy want of experimental discoveries that makes thee question original sinne otherwise thy own heart would be in stead of all books to thee in this particular Indeed in godly men though sinne dwelleth in them yet it hath not peaceable possession it is as a tyrant in them Therefore the regenerate part maketh many oppositions and great resistances There is praying watching and fasting against it They are as sollicitous to have it quite expelled as some were to have Christ cast out the Devils from their possessed friends otherwise in the natural man original sin prevaileth all over and there is no noise no opposition yea great delight and content there is in subjection thereunto so that they resist Grace and the Spirit of God by the Word which would subdue sinne in them So that there is a great difference between the Inâ—dwelling of original sinne in a natural man and a regenerate In the former it dwelleth indeed but as the Jebusites in Canaan upon hard terms as the Gibeonites were in subjection to the Israelites It is true Arminius In Cap. 7. ad Rom. pag. 696. from this expression of sinne dwelling in Paul doth think a firm argument may be drawn to prove that he discourseth of an unregenerate person Because saith he the word to dwell doth in its proper signification and in the use of the Scripture signifie a full and powerfull dominion and therefore rejecteth that distinction of Peccatum dominans or regnans which is said to be in wicked men and inhabitans which is in the godly he would have it called inexistens not inhabitans But we have shewed That sinne is said to dwell in a man not because of its dominion in a godly man but because of its fixed inseparability and from this word a servant who hath no rule in an house is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Pet. 2. 18. Thirdly The word doth denote permanency and a fixed abode in us it is not for a night or year but our whole life dwelling in us So that sinne is not in a mans heart as a pilgrim as a stranger that is presently to remove but it hath taken up a fixed abode in us here it dwels and here it will dwell you see our holy Apostle sadly complaining of this inseparability of it from him as long as he lâ—veth Actual sinnes they are committed and so passe away yea when pardoned it is as if they had never been but original sinne is like Samson's hair though cut it will grow again and be as strong as ever till it be plucked up by the roots Fourthly In this expression is denoted the latency also and security of it it dwels in us and it 's called The Law in our members The chief actings and stirrings of it are in the inward man Therefore it is that the natural man the Pharisaical and hypocritical man know nothing of it Paul while a Pharisee and so zealous against grosse sinne abounding in external obedience yet knew not lust to be a sinne neither was he so sensible of such a load and burden within him Vse 1. Of Instruction not to think imputed original sinne or Adam's actual transgression made ours to be all the original sin we have No you may see there is an in-dwelling sinne an inherent corruption from whence floweth all that actual filth which is in our lives And why is it that we hear no more groaning and labouring under it Is it not because the spiritual life of grace is not within them Oh why are all things so still and peaceable within thee
full as ever Thus it is with this treasure of original sinne all the sins that have come from it to this day have not at all diminished the fountain it 's as full and as overflowing as ever yea as sudden showrs make the rivers fuller causing a flood Thus do all actual and customary sins they make this original corruption like Nebuchadnezzar's fornace seven times hotter than it was before Fourthly In that it is called a treasure we thereby see the delight and pleasure that we naturally take in what is sinfull Our Saviour saith Where a mans treasure is there his heart is also how much more when this treasure is his heart when his heart and treasure is all one Therefore this expression doth denote the futable and pleasing nature of sinne to us it sheweth that what water is to the hydropical man as Job 15. so is sinne to a man by nature Hence Heb. 11. they are called The pleasures of sinne Who would think so you would rather think we might as well say The pleasures of hell and the pleasures of damnation that a man would be as willing to be damned as to sinne But thus sweet and pleasing is sinne to every man by nature because his heart is upon it it is a treasure to him That as the godly account Gods will sweeter than the honey-comb so do they the will and lusts of sinne Do ye not pity such who are so distempered in their palate that they cannot forbear eating those things which will be their death at last How much more miserable is man to whom nothing is so pleasant so much sought after as that which will prove his eternal damnation And certainly if sinne be not such a delight to thee naturally how cometh it about that no threatning no fear of hell all the curses in the Law denounced against thee cannot make thee forbear If you regard sinne in its own nature so the Scripture represents it most irksom and loathsom comparing it to gall to a bitter root to mire to vomit And who can desire to swallow down these things But because original sinne hath infected all hath made us like so many beasts therefore what is in it self abominable to our corrupt natures is become exceeding pleasant Fifthly Because it 's a treasure therefore it is that every day there cometh from us some new corruption or other some new sinne or other to be matter of condemnation to us That when we might think if once we had got our hearts to such a frame if once we could subdue such a corruption then we hope we should be at some ease but no sooner have we obtained such desires but this treasure of evil poureth out new matter of sorrow corruptions rise fresh again when we began to hope all were dead So that the soul begins to be even hopeless crying out O Lord how long When shall this bloudy flux be stopped When shall it once be that I may be quiet and free from this molesting enemy within But it is with thy heart as with the sea when one wave is over presently there cometh another and again another and it cannot be otherwise as long as this treasure is in us as Job saith Chap. 14. A Tree though the boughes of it be cut yet the root will spring again and be as big as ever if suffered to grow Thus original sin though it may be mortified and crucified in some measure though there may be much stopping and abating the strength of it by grace yet because the root is there still it will quickly sprout again Hence are the godly put upon those duties of crucifying and mortifying the flesh because they will have this work to do as long as they live there is a treasure and so out of this as the good Scribe cut of his good treasure Mat. 13. 52. doth bring out new and old thus doth he old lusts and new Vse Of Instruction Have we all by nature an evil treasure in our hearts then see why it is that thou art alwayes sinning that thou art never weary that all the world cannot change thee or make thee of another mind Is it not this evil treasure within As it is a treasure of sinne so it is of wrath and punishment Rom. 2. some are said To treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath and this is thy case and never do thou flatter thy self because thou dost not feel and perceive any such evil upon thee for therein art thou the more miserable Treasures use to be hidden and secret therefore in the Scripture called hidden treasures and thus is this treasure of evil in thy heart it is hidden from thee thou dost not know it till God open thy eyes till he give a tender heart CHAP. VII Of the Name Body given to Original Sinne. SECT I. ROM 8. 13. But if ye through the Spirit doe mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live I Come now to the last Name I shall insist upon that the Scripture giveth original sinne and that is a Body For although the most famous and notable name is flesh yet because that will most properly be considered when we speak of the Nature and Definition of it I shall put it off till that time Only we must necessarily take notice of this Title given to it here and elswhere viz. a Body Not that this word is to foment the Illyrican absurdity That original sinne is not an accident but a substance but hereby is manifested the real and powerfull efficacy of it upon the whole man For the coherence of the words the Apostle at vers 12. from that glorious and precious Doctrine of Justification by Faith and also Sanctification begunne in us doth inferre this Exhortation by way of Conclusion That therefore we are not Debtors to the Flesh we have received such great and unspeakable favours from God that we owe all to him as for sinne called here the Flesh we owe nothing at all to that sinne will not justifie us sinne will not save us Neither hath the Devil shewed that love to us which Christ hath done By this then we see That though Justification and Gospel-mercies be not for any works or merits of ours yet Believers are to study and abound in holiness as that which Christ aimed at by the work of Redemption as well as our Justification Now for this reluctancy against and mortification of sinne the Apostle useth several Arguments as in the Text the danger that will accrew even to the godly If they live after the flesh they shall die that is eternally The godly need this goad to prick them forward they must not please themselves as if because they were elected justified they may live as they list and walk after the flesh No if they do so they shall surely be damned SECT II. What is implied by the word Mortifie BUt on the contrary If they mortifie the deeds of the body by the Spirit they shall
furnace and house of bondage did cry and groan for a Redeemer but this is the unspeakable evil of this soul-bondage that we delight in it that we rejoyce in it all our indeavour and care is that we may not be set at liberty and have these chains taken off us From this explication observe That no man hath any liberty or freedom of will to what is good till Christ by his grace hath made him free We do not by freedom of will obtain grace but by grace we obtain freedom of will So that by the Scripture we have not any true ground for a liberum arbitrium but a liberatum in spiritual things There is no such thing as a free-will but a freed will in a passive sense and tunc est liberum when it is liberatum as Austin Then it 's actively free when it is first passively made free Rom. 6. 16. Being made free from sinne He doth not say you have made your selves free but ye are made frre by the grace of Christ And again vers 22. Ye are now made free from sinne and Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of sinne and death By which expressions is implied 1. That all men till sanctified are in an absolute vassalage and thraldom to sinne And 2. That it is onely the grace of Christ that doth deliver from this bondage It is Christ not our own will that maketh us free ¶ 3 Of the several Kinds of Freedome which the Scripture speaketh of TO enter into the depths of this Doctrine Consider What kinds of freedome the Scripture speaketh of and which is applicable to our purpose The Schooles have vast disputes about liberty and free-will What it is whether a compounded faculty or a simple one and whether a faculty or habit or act especially they digladiate about the definition of free-will what it is but if any thing shall be thought necessary to be said in this point it may be pertinently brought in when we shall answer such Objections as the Patrons of nature do use to bring in the behalf of Free-will only it is good to know that in the Scripture we find a civil liberty and a spiritual liberty spoken of a civil liberty Thus bond and free are often opposed Ephes 6. 8. Col. 3. 11. 1 Cor. 7. 22. But this is not to the Text nor to our purpose Therefore the Scripture speaketh much of a spiritual freedome and that is First In the translating of us out from the dominion of sinne and Satan into a gracious state of holiness and this is called by Divines Libertas gratia or as Austin libertas à peccato The freedome of grace of which those Texts speak that we mentioned before Secondly There is the Evangelical and Christian liberty whereby we are freed from many things of the law not only the curse of the moral law and the spirit of bondage which did accompany the legal administration thereof but also from the obligation unto and exercise of the ceremanial This Evangelical liberty is often commended in the Scripture as the glorious priviledge of the Christian Church which the legal Church wanted of this legal servitude and Evangelical freedome the Apostle Gal. 4 doth largely and most divinely treat This Christian liberty also from Jewish rites The Apostle Gal. 5. 1. â—â—horteth us to stand fast in as being purchased for us by the death of Christ as a glorious priveledge only the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 2. 16 giveth good advice That we turn not our liberty into licentiousness It is true the Apostle doth once use the word free abusively and improperly Rom. 6. 20 where the servants of sinne are said to be free from righteousness or to righteousness now this is improperly called a freedome for as the service of God is the truest freedome so freedome from holiness is the greatest slavery Although Austin doth from this Text make a division of liberty into two kinds which he maketh perpetual use of Libertas à peccate and Libertas a justitiâ The godly man hath the former liberty the sinner hath the latter but this latter is improperly called liberty Lastly There is a spiritual freedome mentioned by the Scripture as the utlimte and complete perfection of all when the soul shall be freed not only from the dominion of sinne but the presence of it all the reliques and remainders of it and the body shall be freed from death pain and all corroptibility Rom. 8. 2. This is called the glorious liberty of the sons of God and for this every godly man is to groan and mourn even as the woman in travel to be delivered This is called by Divines libertas gloriae and libertas à miserià But we are to speak of the liberty of grace and herein we are not to admire the Free-will of man but the free grace of God man hath no free-will to do that which is spiritual and holy Free-will is an Idol which the corrupt heart of man is apt to advance he is unwilling to be brought out of himself to be beholding to the grace of Christ only therefore Austin observed well That this truth is to be found out by prayer and supplication sooner then by disputation Did men commune with their own hearts did they observe the Abyss and depth of all evil that is in their corrupt will how intangled and in slaved to the creature they would quickly fall from disputation to humiliation and turne arguments into prayers ¶ 4. The Names which the Scripture expresseth that by which we call Free-Will THe next thing in our method that will be explicating of the Doctrine is to take notice of What names the Scripture useth to express this thing by that we call Free-will for free-will is not a Scripture name but Ecclesialsical yet the sence of it is in the Scripture for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used in the Scripture to will and that in such things wherein freedome is necessarily supposed Luk. 22. 9. Where wilt thou that we prepare a place Joh. 9. 27. Wherefore would ye hear it again will ye also be his Disciple Act 7. 28 wilt thou kill me also c. and in many other places hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for the free-will of a man 1 Cor. 7. 37 and indeed it is disputed whether to do a thing voluntariè and liberè voluntarily and freely be not all one and so libertas and voluntas only voluntas denoteth the power and liberty the qualification of it in its working Jansenius is most consident that in Austin's constant dispute with the Pelagians liberum arbitrium is no more then voluntas and that to do a thing freely is no more then to do it voluntarily this he maintaineth against the Jesuites and withall wonders at a late Writer of their own whom he nameth not which writeth that the word servum arbitrium was not heard in the Church of God
an humane way hath brought in several errours into the Church for it was because of this in part that the Marcionists denied Christ to have a true real body they thought it ignominious to him to be born as other children are and so in Popery there are marvellous legends and wonderfull miracles feigned about Christ while an Infant The surest way then to honour Christ is to keep close to his Word and we see how one error begetteth another for from the opinion that she was without original sinne they have proceeded to horrible Idolatry attributing that which is proper to Christ unto her she is called the Mediatrix she is called their hope There is a Roman Psaltery full of blasphemy in this kind turning Dominus into Domina what is said of the Lordunto her the Lady It is true we do as she fore-told acknowledge her blessed among women There was an high dignity bestowed upon her in being the mother of Christ but she was more happy in having Christ in her heart by faith then conceiving him bodily in her womb It is well observed by Cartwright in his Harmony That whereas the parents of John the Baptist are highly commended as righteous before God walking in all the Commandments of the Lord Luk. 1. 6. there is nothing recorded of the holiness of the Virgin Mary that hereby she rather then other women had this priviledge vouchsafed to her as if thereby the holy Ghost would prevent that horrible Idolatry which he foresaw would creep into the Church concerning her As the Papists so the Turks they do fondly and foolishly boast of the impeccability of their Mahomet insomuch that one of their learned men was forced to flie for his life because he held Mahomet might have sinned a venial sinne if he would Vide Hornbeek summa cent de Mahumedisme And although they do not say Mahomet was born without sinne yet they have a prodigious fable concerning him That when he was a child of four years old some Angels laid hold on him and carried him into a mountain where they diffected him washed his guts clean took out a black drop which they say is in every man as the seed of the Devil and all this without any grief and by this meant he was freed from sinne It is most dreadfull to consider what impieties and impostures are in that Mahumetan Religion and yet how greatly the propugners thereof have prevailed and that where Christian Churches were plantâ—â— They have also their religious persons which they call Nefesogli that they held are without sinne yea that they are not born in an humane way of generation of whose extasies they do relate very stupendious things by which we see how greatly the Devil can prevail by bodily devotions and such extatical raptures as well as by traditional superstitions The Devil doth not only by heresi and Idolatry but also by devotions and strange bodily raptures prevail and inlarge his Kingdom But these are so fabulous they are not worth insisting on Theodoret as Sixtus Senensis relateth Annot. in c. 5. Rom speaketh as if Seth Euceh Noah and such eminent men were free from original sinne as the Rabbins of Beaz and others that they were without evil concupiscence But though these had the grace of God regenerating them yet they were by nature full of sinne and although when it is said That the imaginations of mans heart were only evil from the youth it is said of Noah But he was a righteous man and feared God and so found favour with him This doth not inferre that by nature his imaginations were not as evil as others but only by the grace of God he had obtained a mighty change and translation from that natural condition SECT V. How absurd it is to exempt any from this Natural Pollution upon any ground whatsoever THirdly Original sinne being thus a sinne of the nature as it is absurd to exempt any from it upon Theological considerations so likewise from any Philosophical niceties For there are some that bring forth strange and paradoxal opinions about the nature of man and these will not have all men involved in Adam's sinne for there is an anonimous Author truly nullius nominis hath a written book De praeadomitis his whole scope is to shew that there were men before Adam though the Scripture doth not mention them and he saith A negative argument in matter of fact doth not hold There were none because the Scripture doth not name them no more then we can say Melchizedech had no father or mother indeed because they are not mentioned But Moses relateth what was in the beginning and thereby doth exclude any before Adam yea in the Scripture Adam is expresly called the first man 1 Cor. 15. 45. There are others and they would from Philosophy prove That all men are not of the same kind no more then birds and beasts and therefore they did not all come from Adam They instance in the Antipodes in those that are in the other world or Hemisphere The ancient Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthiant pag. 29. speaketh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worlds beyond the sea But these all come from Adam for Act. 17. 26. it is expresly said That God hath made of one blend all Nations of men that dwell on the earth Therefore we need not matter these fancies no more then those that hold a world in the Moon and men there Paracelsus that gloried he would reform Luther as Luther had the Pope Vidâ— Ludev Crec Syntag. cap. 28. pag. 811. telleth us of men found in mines and that there are Marini homines and Satyrs who are capable of blessedness and that Christ died for them as a certain Satyr is said to the famous Ermit Anthony Some also speak of men begotten in that unnatural way with beasts that are beasts and men have these original sinnes But we are to despise all these niceties Neither are fancies to be minded against the clear Doctrine of the Scripture wheresoever there is the nature of man in a natural way there the Scripture pronounceth all obnoxious to this sinne The last Proposition is That this original sinne is communicated to all mankind although they have not sinned after the similitude of Adam 's transgression For you may happily think it is indeed just with God to punish all such who sinne like Adam that imitate him in his wickedness But as for others how doth that appear becoming the righteousness and mercy of God Now for this we have a clear attestation Rom. 5. 14. Death reigned over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression But what is meant by this description is controverted Those that leave out the negative making it to runne affirmatively viz. Who sinned after the transgression of Adam and also those who read it thus Death reigned after the similitude of Adams transgression upon those who did not sinne As Verstius following Erasmus and Chrysostom are not to be
Exposition for they acknowledge those workings of the Law in this person against sinne are from the Spirit of God These are the good gift of God and although they come not from the Spirit as regenerating yet as moving and preparing the heart for Regeneration Now will it not be derogatory to say that in this conflict the Spirit of God is overcome in every conflict that at no time he cannot do the good he would This is to make the conflict of a man in this legal estate inferiour to Aristotle's incontinent person who hath only the meer light of natural reason to help him for he compareth Lib. 7. Ethic. cap. 9. intemperance to the disease of a Dropsie or Consumption because incurable but incontinency to the falling-sickness because curable And then because the former is continual the later sometimes only If then in very Heathens whose conflict is only between a natural conscience and their lusts conscience doth sometimes prevail their lusts do not alwayes overcome Shall we think lesse is done by the Spirit of God in them who are in this legal conflict It is true if we speak of perfect obedience to the Law of God so at all times in all things the Law of sinne within a godly man doth retard and make him to come short but then in particular combates there the flesh doth not alwayes prevail only the Apostle instanceth in the tyranny of sinne and not the dominion of grace because hereby he would inform the Jews how much they were to sigh and groan under this burden and thereupon to have higher thoughts of Christ For seeing there were two things that did keep them off from Christ The ignorance of the power of original sinne and a desire to find out a righteousness by the works of the Law The Apostle doth take an excellent way to cure them of these two evils by shewing what deep root original sinne hath in the most holy and how opposite and fighting it is against the grace of God within us insomuch that we cannot have our full comfort but in Christ alone ¶ 2. Reasons for this Exposition THat there is no godly man living free from this spiritual combate because of the flesh which still abideth in him hath been proved by Reasons and Scripture To this Text we have joyned Paul's Discourse Rom. 7. which you heard was to be understood of no other then a regenerate person But because such an Exposition as also the Doctrine of the imperfection of Regeneration may be abused You heard with what limitations that Chapter was to be interpreted though of a godly man It is remarkable what Austin saith in defence of himself expounding this place of a regenerate person whereas he had interpreted it otherwise formerly Non ego primus aut solus c. Lib. 6. contra Julianum lib. 11. He was not the first or only man that did interpret it so Yea he confesseth he understood it of unregenerated persons once himself and his greatest reason was because he thought Paul could not say of himself That he was carnal and sold under sinne but afterwards saith he Melioribus intelligentioribus cessi vel potius ipsi veritati c. The example of this excellent man might much convince but that prejudice doth blind mens eyes Let us see what Reasons are cogent for this Exposition First This is very considerable That the Apostle in the former verses speaking of himself useth the Preterperfect tense speakth of that which was past onely at the fourteenth verse there he changeth the tense and speaketh of the present time which may perswade us that he speaketh of himself what he was once before regenerated and what he hath experience of in himself though sanctified This changing of the time argueth a change also in the person for so his Discourse runneth from the seventh verse to the fourteenth I had not known lust and sinne wrought in me all manner of concupiscence I was alive without the Law once and sinne deceived me c. All these expressions are concerning what was done in him Then at the fourteenth verse with the rest following he speaketh of the present time I am carnal I do that which I allow not c. This altering of the time may incline us to think that it is very probable the Apostle doth compare his former estate of unregeneracy with the present of sanctification that he is now in It is true indeed we grant that the Apostle doth sometimes assume the person of another man he supposeth such a thing in himself which yet we must not conclude to be in him as Rom. 3. 7. For if the truth of God hath abounded more through my life unto his glory why yet am I judged as a sinner Here it is certain he personateth a wicked object or and caviller So 1 Cor. 13. 2. If I have all faith and not charity c. As also Gal. 2. 18. If what I have destroyed I build the same again I make my self a transgressor But who doth not see a vast difference between these expressions and Paul's Discourse in this Chapter For they are spoken hypothetically by way of supposition And therefore every one may perceive that the Apostle doth not intend an absolute speech of himself Had the Apostle used such conditional expressions here then there had been some colour If I do the evil I would not if I do not the good I would if I delight in the Law if the Law of God c. then we might have doubted whether he spake of himself or no. Or had the Apostle as absolutely and peremptorily spoken in those places as he doth here we should have wondred at it Should he after a large Discourse to that purpose have concluded So then I my self distroy what I have built it would have greatly amazed us As for that place insisted upon by so many 1 Cor. 4. 6. These things I have in a figure transferred to my self and Apollo c. and from thence gathering That it is ordinary with Paul by a figure to assume another habit as it were then his own Suppose it be granted Doth it therefore follow he doth here in this place What doth the Apostle never speak in his own person If we will not take this as spoken of himself Why do the Dissentients take the second verse in the next Chapter as to be understood of his own person The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the Law of sinne and death Besides this very place maketh against them for when the Apostle doth thus assume a person he plainly discovereth he doth so you see he doth expresly say that what he did he did by a figure but here is not the least hint given of any such thing there is not a syllable by which we may gather any such transfiguration So that it is a wonder that the Apostle should continue in such a long discourse and that with so much vehemency
of spiritual life should also be divested of his natural life Hence it is that the Apostle informeth us of that which all the natural wise men of the world were ignorant of Rom 5. 12. That by one mans sinne death entred into the world where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is observed to have its peculiar Emphasis pertransiit sicut lues even as the rot doth destroy an whole flock of sheep and therefore at the 14th Verse the Apostle useth another emphatical expression Death reigned and that upon those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression Seeing then by Adams transgression death cometh thus to reign over all mankind and there would be no justice to have 〈◊〉 inflicted where there is no sinne it followeth necessarily that every child becometh inherently sinful because internally mortal and corruptible Thirdly The third and last cause is the anger of God justly inflicting this punishment of death upon us death may be considered in respect of the meritorious cause and so it is not of God but of sinne Secondly in respect of the decreâ—ing and punishing cause and this death is from God as an evil justly inflicted upon man for his sinnes God inflicts the sentence of death upon us but sinne deserveth it not that death can properly be caused by God for that is a privation but by removing life God in taking away life is thereby said to cause death Even as when the Sunne is removed from our Hemispere then darkness doth necessarily follow These then are the causes of death but oh how little are they attended untoâ— men attributing death to many other causes besides this ¶ 6. Prop. 6. VVHen we say that death cometh by original sinne in that we comprehend all deseases pains and miseries which are as so many inchoate deaths yea all labour and weariness for so God threatned Adam Gen. 2 17. Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the dayes of thy life In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken In this sentence there is matter enough to humble us there is not a thistle in thy corn not a weed in thy garden but it may put thee in mind of original sinne yea there is not the least pain or ach of thy body but this may witness it to thee so that Austin saith truly we do circumferre testimonium c. We carry about with us daily full evidence to confirme this Doctrine of original sinne for such evils and calamities as do necessarily follow our specifical nature accompanying us as men they cannot be attributed unto any other cause but original sin which consideration viz. of mankind being universally plunged into miseries and not knowing the cause thereof made the Platonists and some Heretiques conclude that the soules of men had sinned formerly and by way of punishment were therefore adjudged to these mortal and wretched bodyes Though death be only mentioned because that is most terrible and all other miseries tend thereunto yet they are necessarily included Some ask the Question Why God did not threaten hell rather then death but no doubt eternal death is understood in this commination for temporal and eternal death are the wages of sinne only death is mentioned as being most terrible to sense men being more affected with that then with hell which is believed by faith The Scripture then mentioning death only how absurd and preposterous are the Socinians who in that threatning will comprehend any thing but death death they say cometh from the necessity of that matter we are constituted of but sickness labour and such miseries as also eternal death these are the proper fruit of sinne Thus men delivered up to errour are hurried from one dangeous precipice to another But let Christians in all deseases miseries and death it self look higher then the Philosopher or the Physitian Let them acquaint themselves with original sinne and thereupon humble themselves under Gods hand ¶ 7. The several Grounds assigned by Schoolmen of Adam's immortality rejected and some Causes held forth by the Orthodox Propos 7. ALthough it be agreed upon by all except Socinians and their adherents that Adam was made immortal at least by grace and the favour of his Creator yet there is difference among the Popish Writers upon what to fasten the ground of his immortality What was the cause of it therein they disagree Some place it in a certain vigor and excellency that was then in the soul whereby it was able to preserve the body from death Molina liketh not this De opere sex dierum Disput 28. and therefore he doth affirm that the body of Adam was made immortal and impassible by an habitual gift bestowed upon it which he saith was a corporeal quality extended through the whole body Because saith he this immortality was not a transient thing but an enduring gift sutable to that state and God is used to give permanent gifts not immediately but by some inherent principle Even as the glorified bodies are made immortal by some intrinsecal quality accommodated to that state yea and the bodies of the damned also though they are immortal yet they are not impassible because they are tormented in the flames of hell fire But Suarez Lib. 3. de hominis Creatione cap. 14. doth upon good grounds reject any such supposed corporeal quality as being without any foundation from the Scripture and introducing a miraculous way without necessity For who can think that Adam had such an intrinsecal quality in his body that fire would not burn him that if he went upon the waters his body would not sink Others they attribute his immortality to the tree of life that was say they both alimentum medicamentum as it was both nourishment so it preserved life and as it was medicinal so it did repair that partial abating of natural strength in concoction which would otherwise in time have come upon man But this opinion taketh that for granted which yet is greatly controverted viz. that it was called the tree of life as if there had been some active physical power in the fruit thereof to continue a mans life either for a long time as some think or for ever as others whether indeed once eating of it or constant eating was necessary as opportunity did require is also debated by curious Authors for some make it to be called a tree of life onely Symbolically as being a signe of eternall life which Adam should have enjoyed had he continued in obedience And truly though it should be granted that there was such a virtue in the tree yet when Adam had sinned it would no wayes have helped him or preserved him from death because the wages of sinne is death and therefore would not have produced that in him which it is supposed that it might have had in Adam's obedience yet God would cast him out
of Infants dying in their original sinne without Baptisme Lib. 6. de Amissione grat naming five several opinions some whereof are more rigid others more favourable That our opinions cannot at all alter or change the state of Infants so deceased The rigid opinion doth not hurt them neither doth a favourable opinion do them any good but the Word of God that will stand our favourable and pitifull opinions will not make the natural estate of any man the better yea when such Doctrines are found to be contrary to the Word of God they may do a great deal of hurt plunging of them into dangerous consequences that may flow therefrom Therefore to such Disputants we may well reply that which Acosta the Jesuite Lib. 5. de procur Indorum salute cap. 3. saith to some of his own Religion that held even Heathens might be saved without the knowledge of Christ and that the contrary Doctrine was inhumane and severe Non hic agitur saith he durumne hoc severum sit an benignum liberale sed utrum verum necne Secondly As we are not to attend to humane affections in this point so neither to humane and natural reasonings Why God should impute Adam's sinne to us and we all be accounted as sinners in him and from him the cursed root we the cursed branches do spring ariseth from the just proccedings of God though happily the causes the thereof be unknowen to us When therefore the Scripture of God doth plainly affirm such a sinful and cursed estate let not philosophical Arguments obstruct our faith lest if we do so in other mysteries of Religion as well as in this at last we fall into plain Atheisme Let us be content with our own measure of understanding not invading the secrets of God lest we herein betray notoriously our original sinne while we labour to deny it For Luther speaking against these Curislae and Quaeristae as he calleth them In Gen. whereby men will demand a reason of Gods proceedings and affect to be like God in knowledge as Adam did hath this expression Fieri Deorum est originale peccatum original sinne is the affection of a Deity Thirdly We are alwayes in this controversy to distinguish between the merit of condemnation and the actual condemnation it self It is unquestionably true that all by nature do deserve this eternal damnation but then concerning the actual damnation thereby there are different opinions Some have delivered positively that none is ever damned for original sinne only as some Papists and the Remonstrants yea there are many say that this actual condemnation by original sinne is universally taken off all mankind by Christ so that as by the first Adam all were put into a state of Gods anger so by the second Adam all are put into a state of actual reconciliation by Christ till by their actual sins they do refuse Christ and so procure to themselves damnatation not upon any account of Adam's sinne but their own voluntary transgresson Concerning Infants also dying in their infancy great Disputes there are Some concluding all that die so though of Unbelievers and Pagans that they are saved original sinne not damning any others they conclude otherwise but then they are divided into several opinions amongst themselves of which in time more is to be said For we are not as yet come to that point concerning the actual condemnation of any by original sinne meerly but the merit and defect of it what every man doth deserve by it as soon as he is born though every sinne deserveth 〈◊〉 yet this obligation to eternal punishment may be taken off yea and that while the sinne abideth as original sinne doth in some measure in a godly man There are indeed some who make the reatus poenae the guilt of punishment to be the forme of a sinne and if this were true then they could not be 〈◊〉 Others make it a proprium to sinne but this cannot be understood of actual guilt but potential guilt Every sinne and so original doth deserve that those who are infected therewith should perish in hell torments eternally but yet the actual obligation hereunto may be removed by the grace of God the sinne still remaining in some degree as the fire had a power to burn the three Worthies though the actual working thereof was hindered SECT VI. Arguments to prove that by Nature we are all as so many damned men That Damnation belongs to the Sinne we are borne in THis being premised let us now consider those Arguments which may firmly establish us in this truth That by nature we are all as so many damned men that of our selves we can expect no other and that though we were free from actual transgression It is the grace of God only that delivereth us All mankind is like that wretched Infant Ezek. 16. spoken of by the Prophet wallowing in bloud filthy and loathsome necessarily perishing unlesse the grace of God speak unto us to live we all lie like Ezekiel's any bones of whom we may say Can these live Can these be saved Not one unlesse God give life And First All deserve eternal damnation by original contagion Because it is a state of sinne and spiritual uncleannesse we are born in And therefore if once it be granted to be a sinne the wages thereof must be hell and damnation Insomuch that some Popish Writers are very absurd who disputing against Pelagians That our birth-sinne is properly and univocally sinne yet afterwards question Whether children dying therein do go to hell or no Some assign them a Paradise wherein they have a natural happiness as Catharinus Opusc de statu pucrorum c. Others as Bellarmine that they have poena damni but not sensus as if there were half an hell or that one might be shut out from the beatifical fruition of God and yet not be tormented with sensible pain This is certain if it be truly and directly a sinne as the Scripture so often calleth it then without the grace of God there is no possibility of escaping hell thereby why then should damnation because of it be thought so horrid when it is acknowledged to be a sinne Job you heard saith Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Job 14. 4. here we are all unclean Now what doth the Scripture pronounce of such Revel 21. 29. There shall not in any wise enter into the heavenly Jerusalem any thing that is unclean or that defileth No unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of heaven and if they do not enter in there they must enter into the kingdom of hell There is no middle place Qui inducis medium recede de medio as Austin The Scripture also calleth it sinne Psal 51. 5. Behold in sinne did my mother conceive me and what is the wages of sinne but death Rom 6. 23. not only bodily death but that eternal death which is opposite to everlasting life and the Apostle saith The sting of death is sinne 1
Cor. 15. 56. which Austin expounds in this sense as that by sinne death is caused as that is called Poculum mortis a cup of death which causeth death or as some say The Tree of life is called so because it was the cause of life If then original sinne be a sinne it must have a sting and this sting is everlasting death So that if we attend to what the Scripture speaketh concerning us even in the womb and the cradle that we are in a state of sinne we must conclude because it is a sinne therefore it deserveth damnation Hence you heard the Apostle Rom. 5. expresly saith Judgement came by one to condemnation and Rom. 3. That the whole world is guilty before God Secondly The Scripture doth not only speak of this birth-pollution as a sinne but as an hainous sinne in its effects whereby it doth admis of many terrible aggravations as you have heard It is the Law in our members it 's the flesh tho body of sin the sin that doth so easily beset us the sin that warreth against the mind and the Spirit of God that captivateth even a godly man in some measure which maketh Paul groan under it and cry out of his miserable condition thereby so that it is not meerly a sinne but a sinne to be aggravated in many respects and therefore necessarily causing damnation unlesse God in his mercy prevent Let Bellarmine and others extenuate it making it lesse then the least sinne that is of which more afterwards let them talk of venial sinnes that do not in their own nature deserve hell yet because all sinne is a transgression of Gods Law the curse of God belongeth thereunto therefore it hath an infinite guilt in respect of the Majesty of God against whom it is committed and they who judge sinne little must also judge the Majesty of God to be little also What shall one respect of involuntariness which is in original sinne make it lesse then others when 〈…〉 so many other respects some whereof do more immediately relate to the nature of sinne then voluntariness can do farre exceed other sinnes Thirdly Original sinne must needs deserve damnation because it needeth the bloud of Christ to purge away the guilt of it as well as actual sins Christ is a Saviours to Infants as well as to grown men and if he be a Saviour to them then they are sinners if he save them then they are lost As for that old evasion of the Pelagian Infants need Christ not to save them from sinne but to bring them to the Kingdom of Heaven it 's most absurd and ridiculous for the whole purpose of the Gospel is to shew That Christ came into the world to bring sinners to Heaven through his bloud his death was expiatory and by way of atonement therefore it did suppose sinne hence he is sad to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sinne of the world John 1. 29. which is both original and actual Fourthly That eternal damnation belongeth to the sinne we are born in appeareth by those remedies of grace and Ordinances of salvation which were appointed by God both in the Old and New Testament for the taking away of this natural guilt Circumcision in the Old Testament did declare that by nature the heart was uncircumcised and that every one was destitute of any inherent righteousnesse hence circumcision is called The seal of the righteousnesse which is by faith Rom. 4. 11. To this Baptism doth answer in the New Testament the external never whereof with the formal Rite of Administration doth abundantly convince us of our spiritual uncleanness as also the need we have of the bloud of Christ and also of his Spirit for our cleansing Now because the known Adversary to this truth affirmly That he knoweth of no Church that in her Rituals doth confesse and bewail original sinne As also that we might see the Judgement of our first Reformers in England about Baptism as relating to original sinne It is good to observe what is set down in the Publique Administration of Baptism as by the Common-Prayer-Book was formerly to be used there the Minister useth this Introductory Forasmuch as all men be conceived and born in sinne adding from hence That none can enter into the kingdom of Heaven unlesse he be born again It is the sinne he is born in not pure Naturals as the Doctor saith that inferreth a necessity of regeneration Again In the Prayer for children to be baptized there is this passage That they coming to thy holy Baptism may receive remission of sins Now what sinnes can children have but their original It is spoken in the plural number because more than one child is supposed to be baptized Again in the same Prayer we meet with this Petition That they being delivered from thy wrath What can more ashame the Doctors opinion then this That which he accounteth so horrid is here plainly asserted That children are born under Gods wrath therefore prayer is made that they may be delivered from it Lastly In another Prayer after the Confession of Faith we have this Petition That the old Adam in these children may be so buried that the new man may be raised up in them Why doth he not seoff at this expression saying as he doth upon another occasion That they change the good old man with these things that he never thought of No doubt but he will force these passages by some violent Interpretation as he doth the 9th Article but certainly it would be more ingenuity in him to flie to his principles of liberty of prophesying rather then to wrest these publick professions of original sinne It is true the Ancients and so the Papists put too much upon Baptism For Austin thought every child dying without Baptism yea and without the participation of the Lords Supper was certainly damned But of this extream more afterwards It is enough for us That Christs Institution of such a Sacrament and that for Infants doth evidently proclaim our sinfulnesse by nature and therein our desert of eternal wrath Fifthly To original sinne there must needs belong eternal wrath because of the nature of it and inseperable effects flowing from it The nature of it is the spiritual death of the soul by this a man is alienated from all life of grace and therefore till the grace of God appear it 's true of all by nature as followeth in the Chapter where this Text is vers 12. Without Christ alient from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world Thus Davenant upon that Text Dead in sinne Col. 2. 13. saith All the sons of Adam are accounted dead first because they lie in a state of spiritual death having lost the Image of God and partly because they are under the guilt of eternal death being obnoxious to the wrath of God for by nature we are the children of wram If then original sinne put
estate by Adam for he did at first endow him with all heavenly ability to stand in that glorious estate and thereby to bring happiness to his posterity also Now when Adam by his voluntary disobedience had deprived himself of all this excellency was God bound to restore him a second time If a Debtor by his own prodigality make himself unable to pay his Creditor is the Creditor bound to bestow money upon that man and to put him into his former condition again Now if man own not this to man much lesse doth God to man Lastly The condition of the apostate Angels and Gods dispensation towards them doth abundantly discover what God might do in this case for there is no reason in man why he should be more kind to him then an apostate Angel seeing all are sinfull Now when the Angels fell was God bound to recover theme Did he deliver any one of them out of that wretched estate No more would God have been unjust if he had not saved any one out of all mankind Let us therefore admire at the goodness of God in choosing of some and tremble under his justice in passing by of others taking heed of pride and curiosity in searching into these mysterious wayes of God especially of his prescience and providence in this particular which heads in Divinity are full of comfort as well as excellent in dignity but to be wise in them according to sobriety is operae pretium to erre periculum to acquiesce miraculum as Junius excellently in his close of his dispute with the foresaid Puccius In the next place let us conflict with their Goliah the chiefest support of their cause and that is from the Antithesis or Opposition which the Apostle maketh Rom. 5. 15. between the first man Adam and the second man Jesus Christs wherein the Excellency and Preheminence is given to Christ that his grace doth much more abound to life and justication then Adam's sinne can to condemnation Yea the Apostle useth the same note of Vniversality for the subject of either sometimes all and sometimes many plainly declaring hereby That as there is by Adam a Catholical enmity and offence that we are plunged into in respect of God towards us so there is also as Catholical and Vniversal Reconciliation and favour with God that we are instated into through Christ our Mediater otherwise it seemeth much to derogate from the honour and glory of Christ that his favour and love should be more straitned and limited than Adam's efficacy to our condemnation To this many things are to be considered by way of answer First That if they will rigidly and severely urge the collation made between Adam and Christ then they must conclude of the actual salvation of every man not one excluded For it Adam's sinne did de facto put all into a state of condemnation so that if Gods grace had not wrought an evasion for some all had actually perished Thus it followeth much more than on Christs part that all must be de facto saved and delivered from Adam's transgression with the consequents thereof But the Scripture doth clearly evidence this That in respect of the event the greater part of mankind will be damned The way to hell is a broad way and many enter therein So that Christ is not actually a cause of saving more than Adam is of damning if you respect the event and issue farre more through Adam's disobedience go to hell then through Christs obedience are admitted into Heaven and yet the Adversaries themselves must confess here is no derogation to the honour and glory of Christ And if it be said That it is mans actual unbelief and impentency whereby he doth wilfully and frowardly refuse Christ the Physician of his soul Christ hath put him into a state of favour but he doth voluntarily cast himself out again and so is made unworthy of the grace which cometh by Christ It is answered that is true But 1. How cometh it about that men have such an actual rebellion against Christ Whence is it that they have such an inclination within them to refuse him that is a Saviour though he come for their good Though their sinnes and the Devil will never be that help to them which Christ would be yet they imbrace the later and refuse the former Is not all this from the polluted nature we receive from Adam So that hereby Adam may be thought more universally to destroy then Christ to heal Again In the second place Why is it that through Christ they are not delivered from this rebellion Why is it that he doth not vouchsafe a more tender and pliable heart for condemnation cometh by one sinne but the Apostle aggravaâ—eth the free gift by Christ that it is of many offences unto Justification If then of many why is there any stint or limit of this free gift It is plain that rebellious disposion by some against Christ is wholly subdued and conquered by him and the same power he could put forth in others also if he pleased but he will not do it and therefore the state of reconciliation by Christ is not as extensive as of condemnation by Adam if then for the event it is plain that Adam's condemnation is larger than Christs reconciliation all wicked men being damned in hell both for their original and actual sinnes and then the purpose or decree about this event was no wayes tending to the dishonour of Christ Secondly It is to be considered more diligently in what method the Apostle doth here speak of the Vniversality of the Subject relating to Adam and Christ For the Apostle twice speaking in the general of our condemnation doth use the word all vers 12 Death passed upon all men in that all have sinned And vers 18. Judgement came upon all men to condemnation but to these generals he doth presently subjoyn a distribution of this all and then useth the word many By which it is apparent that the Apostle on purpose altering his speech and distributing this all afterwards into many of two kinds he doth understand the word all not universally but commonly and indifinitely eâ—se why should he immediately upon the word all presently interpret it distributively So that if the Apostles expression and the Coherence of his Discourse be more exactly searched into it will be found not to patrocinate any such supposed Catholical reconciliation For the Apostle divideth the all into the many condemned by Adam eventually and the many justified and saved by Christ effectually Thirdly When the Apostle maketh this comparison between the first Adam to condemnation and Christ to Justification giving the superiority 〈…〉 This is not to be understood in respect of the number of men but of the nature of these gracious effects we hate by Christ This comparison is not for expresse in quantity but quality The Apostle doth not say O how many more as the Pâ—lâ—gians of â—â—d applying Christs benefits to Infants bringing them to the