you have thought this a cruelty or injustice Why might not God leave such a thing to his free will as well as his own salvation or damnation And if he might leave it to a serpent necessarily to beget a serpent why might he not leave it to the will of man to do it freely And if man had chosen such a generation could his off-spring if capable have charged God with cruelty And if not as nothing surer why might not God leave it to the will of man to remain righteous and beget a righteous seed or to fall and beget such as himself Obj. 7. But the pains of hell consist in the torments of conscience and the conscience of an infant will not torment him for that which he could not help Answ 1. It is past our reach here to understand fully the nature of hell torments 2. The loss of Heaven is the greatest part of the misery 3. The sense of that loss will be no small positive misery 4. And all this which the adversaries grant will be confessed due for original pravity and because they are the seed of sinners Obj. 8. No Law forbiddeth us to be the seed of Adam or to draw corruption from our Parents Answ The Law forbad Adam in whom we were to sin and it requireth perfection of acts and habits and condemneth sinful habits as well as sinful acts and go we are violaters of that Law Obj. 9. If Original sin were derived from Adam to us it would have been in the humane nature of Christ at least Adam's act would have been imputed to him as being really the son of man Answ The relation and corruption go together and both of them belong to them that derived their natures only from Adam according to the way of natural generation But Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost who by sanctifying the substance of the Virgin of which he had his humane nature and by the miraculous way of procreation prevented the derivation of guilt or sin Obj. 10. Christ saith except we become as little children we shall not enter into Heaven Answ He speaks not of their innocency but of their beginning the World and their lowliness except we be little in our eyes and begin the World a-new by conversion we cannot enter into his Kingdom But this denieth not but that infants may have corruption that unfits them for his Kingdom as you confess Obj. 11. 1 Cor. 7. 14. The children of believers are holy Answ 1. But not by nature but by grace and the faithful's interest in the covenant and dedication of them to Christ in Baptism 2. They had no need of this hallowing if they had not naturally some corruption And 3. The children of unbelievers are still unclean 4. And the children of the faithful are not perfectly holy for then they should be better than the Parents Obj. 12. By the same reason you may say that we are guilty of our immediate Parents sins for we were in them more immediately than in Adam Answ We have the same natural interest in our nearest Parents sin and some participation which we must lament and not excuse But of that I have spoken by it self The chief objections here omitted I answered before from Adam's or our nearer Parents being themselves forgiven and so having no guilt to derive to us and their being sanctified and from the creation of the soul c. and go shall not again repeat the answers to them It better beseems us to confess our sin and misery and value the remedy than to tell Christ that we will not so much as pray for the pardon of Original sin nor be beholden to him to forgive it nor to his spirit to cure it which yet is really the thoughts of them that think they have no such thing Among others read Philip Mornay Lord du Plessis in his Verity of Christian Religion in the Chapters of Original sin The vanity of Dr. Taylor 's opposition may be easily seen by what is said his begging the question about the supernaturality of holiness to Adam his frequent mistakes and self-contradiction Whether Posterity be guilty of Death by reason of the Actual sins of their immediate Parents AS little as is said by Divines on this Question it is no over-curious or needless unprofitable subject but very weighty and needful to be understood by all Christians that can reach to the understanding of it For as it is useful for the opening of the cause and nature of Original guilt so if it should prove true that we are guilty by the sins of our immediate Parents it would be necessary that we know it for our due humiliation and that we may in penitent confessions and deprecations prevail with God for the pardon thereof As it is thought a dangerous thing to deny original sin because they that so do will not be humbled under it and sensible of their misery by it nor of the necessity of God's mercy or Christ's blood for the pardon of it nor will apply themselves to God by Christ in Faith Confession and Prayer for pardon and consequently are in danger of missing of pardon so in the present case the same reasons will prove it as well dangerous to deny our guilt of our Parents sins if indeed we are so guilty Which that we may enquire into after a very brief explication of the terms of the Question I shall lay down a few necessary distinctions and then assert what I judge to be the truth in certain Propositions and prove such of them as most require proof 1. By immediate Parents we mean those that personally beget By Posterity we mean their children so begotten By Reason of Actual sin we mean by the Merit of those sins which our Parents themselves committed or by a resultancy from such sin compared with the rule By guilt we mean obligation to punishment or duness of punishment By death we mean the destruction or final misery of the creature either death temporal or eternal We must here distinguish 1. Between the seminal causal potential and virtual being which we have in our Parents and the personal existence that we have in our selves 2. Between the guilt which immediately resulteth from actual sin and the guilt which riseth but mediately from it viz. by the means of some intervening corruption of our own 3. Between the sins of Parents while we are seminally in them and their sins after our birth either 1. in our infancy or 2. in our riper age 4. Between guilt of fault and guilt of punishment 5. Between the aggravation of voluntariness actual and of voluntariness habitual or dispositive 6. Between plenary proper guilt and guilt so called by analogy of attribution and guilt so called equivocally 7. Between punishment univocally analogically or equivocally so called 8. Between obligation to the pain of loss and to the pain of sense 9. And between the meer sense of that loss and the sensible accusations of conscience for actual
sin 10. Between the curable obligation of the Law of Nature or Works and the peremptory and remediless obligation of the Law of Grace Though these distinctions reach further than to the terms of the Question yet are they all such as will be of necessary use in our determination Prop. 1. God doth not impute to us the sins either of our first or neerest Parents further than our true interest in such sins doth give sufficient ground for such imputation As Dr. Twiss among others hath oft and well proved Prop. 2. God doth not esteem us to have personally committed the sins which our first or neerest progenitors did actually commit For his judgment is true and therefore he judgeth of things as they are and therefore he judgeth us not to have done that personally which we did not do Prop. 3. God doth not by any Law oblige us to punishment as the personal committers of such sins which any progenitors of ours did commit and not we and therefore we are not guilty of punishment on that account He never made such a covenant with Adam or any since as some imagine wherein he declareth that he will judge the Posterity guilty of the Parents sin further than their true desert or interest in it meerly because God will so judge or because he will impute the sins of one to another without his desert that were to make him the causer of such mens sins or rather to mistake and call that their sin which indeed is not so Prop. 4. It seems to me that in the same kind as we are guilty of Adam's actual sin we are also guilty of the sins of our neerest Parents allowing for some accidental differences and also our guilt having a remedy at hand which his had not that he knew of we being under a pardoning covenant Because this proposition is not agreeable to the commonest opinion I shall speak to the proof of it and of some that are near to it anon towards the end Prop. 5. If it should prove true which some of the Reformed Divines maintain that original sin doth consist only in the real qualitative corruption of our nature and not directly in any imputation of Adam ' s actual sin to us and that there is no such direct imputation of his sin to us but that it is only the cause of our proper Original sin and not our sin formally then must it needs follow that the like must be said for the negative of the sins of our immediate Parents for they can be no more our sins than Adam's was If this opinion therefore stand good then our controversy is at an end and we are not guilty either of Adam's sin or of our next Parents nor of death for them I will not presume to make my self judge between the Learned Divines that disagree upon this point Camero and his followers go this way against the imputation of Adam's sin to us of which see the sum of their Arguments in Jos Placaeus his Disputat de statu hominis lapsi ante Gratiam in lib. 1. Thesium Salmuriens pag. 206 207. And Chamier is not only of the same mind but confuteth the contrary among the Popish errors as you may see in Tom. 3. lib. 1. cap. 7. against Pighius sect 20 21. but specially throughout chap. 8. contra Salmeronem So also Peter Martyr on Rom. 5. But yet the far greater number of our Writers go the other way and so do the Papists too Prop. 6. It seems not to be a guilt so plenary and perfect which we lie under for any Parents sin if such a thing be proved as that is which a man is under for his own personal sin The difference will appear if we consider that it is not a punishment in so full and perfect a sense which we are obliged to for the suffering is but the matter of the punishment its form lieth in the relation of that suffering to the fault if the malum naturale be not propter malum morale it is not punishment and the punishment is his in the fullest sense who suffereth for his own sin now the sin of Adam or any Parent is not so fully our own as that is which we personally commit seeing as we were but seminally causally and potentially in our Parents and not by existence personally so it is not so much to be esteemed the son of a sinner as to be esteemed the actual sinner himself So that it seems our guilt of and punishment for the actual sin of any Parent is so called by analogy of attribution as they speak as Accidens is called Ens being a more imperfect kind of guilt and punishment Prop. 7. It is past doubt that God may and doth punish Parents in their children In which case the sufferings of the children are materially though not as the next matter the punishment of the Parent but the next matter is the Parents own suffering real or reputative in the suffering of his children but this God doth not without respect to some concurrent guilt in the child unless as he will repair his hurt with a greater good Prop. 8. When the sufferings of a child are but the meer consequents of the Parents sin or punishment then are they no punishment themselves unless equivocally so called but when they are intended by the Rector for the demonstration of justice for the Parents fault then it hath the nature of punishment though the child were imagined innocent For example If a Traytor be sentenced to death and his estate forfeited to the Prince his Heirs will be deprived of all their hopes though the Judge never thought of them in his sentence because the Parent cannot convey to his posterity what he hath lost himself And here the suffering of the Heirs is not formally a punishment but the meer consequent of a punishment But if the Rector do ordain that the Heirs of a Traytor shall be desinherited and intend this as part of the penalty to deter others from Treason then it is not a meer consequent but a real punishment though the Heir be personally innocent Prop. 9. It seems to me that we are so far guilty both of Adam's sin and of our neerer Parents committed whilst we were seminally in them as that God may not only without injustice but also in positive execution of vindictive justice punish us with temporal death for such guilt though it be but a more imperfect kind of guilt and punishment Prop. 10. If this interest in our Parents sins deserve a temporal death then also an everlasting death For when the creature hath lost his life by the stroke of justice God is not bound to restore it Prop. 11. It hence followeth that God may in justice deprive us of everlasting glory for such guilt which is one part of Hell viz. the poena damni for the dead enjoy not glory Prop. 12. Hence also it followeth that God may justly for such guilt leave man under
Adam's first sin on that account because we were seminally in him and are propagated from him then are we guilty of our neerer Parents sins on the same account But the antecedent is true go so is the consequent Here I suppose it granted that Adam's first sin is imputed to us and we guilty of it for I now deal not with those Divines that deny it but with those that maintain it For as I said before if we are not guilty of Adam's sin then I must give up my cause and confess that we are not guilty of the sins of our neerer Parents Supposing then the imputation of Adam's sin to us I must First prove that the reason of that imputation is because we are propagated from him and were seminally in him 2. That on the same reason we have the like guilt of neerer Parents sins 1. For the first I may safely premise this that as in all relations there must be a relate correlate and foundation and as to the disconformity of a crooked line from the rule there must be the crookedness of the line and the straightness of the rule and is the rule will not give you ground to denominate the line disconform or crooked unless it be truly so even so there must be merit on mans part consisting in performance or some participation in the evil before the Law which is the rule will judge him guilty The Law is first the rule of duty and then the rule of judgment And it first shews them to be guilty of the sin reos culpae before it shew their obligation to punishment reatum poenae This being so it seems clear that the doctrine of too many that lay the chief or only cause of man's guilt and punishment upon God's covenant is not sound They say God made a covenant with Adam that he should stand or fall for all his posterity that is as some expound it that his desert of life or death should be imputed theirs and as others that if he sinned he and his posterity should be guilty of death and if he did not sin that first sin of eating the forbidden fruit both he and his posterity should be confirmed in their happiness as the good Angels and never fall afterward And this covenant say they makes us guilty of Adam's sin though we have not a natural interest to make us guilty and so God imputeth it to us not because it was ours before the imputation but because he is pleased to make it ours by that imputation or by his covenant That it is not the imputation or covenant that primarily makes us guilty but determineth us guilty of the fault who are so in our selves and consequently determineth us guilty of punishment I prove thus 1. Else it should be God only or primarily that should make us sinners and not we our selves nor our Parents But that 's most false go The consequence is most apparent If a man be therefore a sinner because God by his covenant or imputation saith he is one and not because he is first made one by himself or Parents then God is the principal if not only cause of sin 2. Yea then God should make a man a sinner by that Law whose essential nature is to prohibit and hinder sin 3. Or else thus God's judgment by Law or Sentence is ever according to the truth of the thing He judgeth or pronounceth things to be as they are and not as they are not But if he should determine or pronounce a man a sinner that is not his judgment were not according to truth but he should make that which is false become true by judging it true which is no tolerable conceit 4. If it were without any antecedent ground in us that God's covenant doth judge or make us guilty of Adam's sin or God impute it to us but meerly because he will do it then on the same reason might God have made or judged the innocent Angels or the Lord Jesus Christ guilty of Adam's sin yea he might have imputed it to the Sun or Moon or any creature For if real innocency secure not us from being made sinners by God or reputed such then it would not secure them Or if God's will to impute it be enough without an antecedent interest to ground that imputation upon then there is no difference as to interest in that sin between them and us But that 's too gross a conceit to be defended 5. There is no such covenant of God with Adam mentioned in Scripture as lays the final standing of his posterity upon that first obedience or disobedience of his much less that determineth that they shall be judged guilty for his sake of more than they are guilty of indeed by natural interest The foundation of the relation is in our selves I conclude therefore that it is most certain that there is in man some sufficient ground or cause why God's Law should denominate or judge him guilty before it do so And this cause can be no other than one of these two either because we were seminally in Adam and are his children or because God making his covenant as the Rector of all mankind did make it upon supposition of a virtual consent contained in the very nature of man and so supposing that what we ought to do we would do and that if all men had then existed we ought to have consented to venture our felicity upon Adam's act and to run the hazardâ— of perishing with him on condition we might be saved with him if he stand and so such a supposed consent is the ground of our guilt But though I will not exclude this last ground yet certainly it is upon a supposition of the former or else it is none at all For man was not to exist till the fall was past and therefore could not be supposed to exist And if God had decreed to create every individual person to the end of the World of nothing as he did Adam without any derivation from him what virtual consent can be supposed or on what ground should it be presupposed that we would all consent to live and die with him any more than with the Angels that fell or any more than the good Angels might be supposed to consent to such a thing I conclude therefore that the first ground of our interest in Adam's sin or our guilt of it is our being his off-spring and then seminally in him and next that God might make one Law for him and all that should come of him as supposing the equity of their consent yet by that Law he hath not that I know of involved them in his first sin any more than in his second or third nor offered them happiness meerly on condition of his avoiding that first sin whatsoever they should afterwards do themselves nor yet promised to make them impeccable or prevent all after sin 2. It being then our natural interest that is the first ground of our guilt
in original sin because they are more fully voluntary and in our power Yet the confirmed sinful habits of the adult where original sin is strengthened by actual are worst of all so that as Accidens is said to be called Ens but by analogy of attribution as having a less participation of the kind and yet it is truly Ens so the original sin of infants is called sin by such an analogy as having a less participation of the common nature of sin in the form and culpability 4. In such a degree as infants are subjects of Christ's Kingdom in such a degree also their original pravity is properly sin 5. In such a degree as their Parents righteousness would have been imputable to them if none of their Ancestors from the creation had sinned and as their own inherent holiness is imputable to the sanctified infants as a moral good in such a degree also is their progenitors sin imputed to them and their original pravity imputed to them as a moral evil 6. We do not assert that any of the adult are damned for original sin alone nor that their original sin is a remediless evil but that a remedy is provided and means appointed for men to use in order to their deliverance from the guilt and pravity which if they refuse they lie under a double guilt 7. Original sin and the misery deserved and due to the subject is a remediable evil in infants themselves As their Parents have propagated a sinful guilty nature to them so if their Parents will unfeignedly dedicate them to Christ and offer and engage them to God in the holy Covenant which Baptisme is the sign and seal of they shall be accepted by God according to the tenor of his promise 8. Our question extendeth not to the degree of infants punishment whether they shall have more or less whether pain of loss only or of sense also or how far 9. An ordinary occasion of seducing many into the denial of original sin is the equalling God's Laws with the Laws of man which yet afford much matter for their confutation Man's Laws meddle not so much with the heart and are not a rule for mens secret thoughts dispositions and inclinations as God's Laws are for man knoweth not the heart nor is made the judge of it further than it is manifested by words or deeds but the heart is as open to God as the actions and the distempers of it as loathsome to him and go his Laws condemn even vitious dispositions and habits as such 10. The will is the first defiled faculty and seat of sin and all the rest of the faculties are capable of sin but secondarily and by participation from the will and there is a threefold voluntariness 1. There is an actual voluntariness or volition 2. An habitual or dispositive voluntariness 3. A moral that is a reputative voluntariness This last may be in several cases distinct from the two former 1. In case a man by contract engage himself to stand to what another doth though that other do somewhat that is against his will in the thing yet his consent to the general hath made him guilty as being reputatively willing of it 2. In case a man will the cause of a necessary effect or any way promote that effect when he should not he is reputatively willing of the effect 3. In case a man by consent be a member of a society whose constitution engageth all the members in a participation of their acts and the consequents so that what is done by a major vote is taken as the act of all as to the good or evil consequents here every member is reputatively an offender when the society offendeth so far as that constitution engaged them 4. In case of a natural power that another hath to choose or refuse for us and this is the case of Parents and their infants and ideot children that having no capacity themselves to choose or refuse their Parents wills are reputatively their wills in all cases wherein their Parents have power to dispose of them as it is in cases of inheritance among us So in Baptism the Parents have power to engage the child to Christ as all the Jews had power and were bound to engage their children in covenant to God where the child reputatively consenteth So Adam having power to retain or reject that righteousness of nature which then he was possessed of and might have derived to his posterity and to choose life or death for himself and in some sort for his posterity we reputatively refused life in his refusal or rejection III. I come now to the proof of the Thesis that infants have original sin Arg. 1. From Rom. 5. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18. If all have sinned then infants have sinned and that can be only by original sin But all have sinned go infants have sinned Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be in whom or in that or forasmuch as I make no great matter of Though I see no reason but with the vulgar Latin and others we should turn it in quo If infants have sin it is as much as I am proving The minor is expresly affirmed in ver 12. all have sinned which is rendred in other words ver 19. many were made sinners The consequence of the major can have nothing said against it but that by All is meant only All the adult and infants are excluded But this is such wilful violence to the Text as that all Scripture may by such interpretation be eluded and words shall signify nothing 1. The express universal affirmation may not be expounded by restraining terms without some cogent reason but here is no cogent reason brought nor can be all the reason of the adversaries is but the point now in question which if they may beg they may thence deny all Texts that be against them because they are against them 2. It is all men that die that the Apostle speaketh of but infants die go he speaks of infants The major is plain v. 12. Death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Here the sinners and dyers are made the same and more than so death is the effect of their having sinned it go passeth upon all men for that all have sinned go not without their sin And the next verses fullier prove it purposely Where death reigneth there sin is imputed but death reigneth on infants go sin is imputed to infants and also the All before mentioned includeth them for it is the same persons that the Apostle speaks of in these verses 12 13 14. The major is proved from the 13 and 14 verses else the Apostle's argument were vain for this is his medium to prove that sin was imputed before the Law viz. because death reigned before the Law even from Adam to Moses go the reign of death will prove the imputation of sin which is the same with having sinned mentioned ver 12. It is the
all that have sinned that are said to have sin imputed to them 3. The All that have sinned ver 12. are the same All that are made righteous and have the justification of life and that shall reign in life by Jesus Christ ver 16 17 18 19. This is plain in the Context in the opposition But infants are included in the latter All that shall reign in life by Jesus Christ c. go infants are included in the former All that have sinned He that denieth the minor must deny not only the Baptism but the justification and salvation of all infants 4. All old interpretations which the Churches have used that are now most known do shew that thus they understood the Text. The Syriack turns it by so death passed on all the sons of men for that all have sinned The Arabick seeing all have now sinned referring to that past sin The Ethiopick thus And as by the iniquity of one man sin entred into the World and by that sin death came upon all men because that sin is imputed to all men even to them that knew not what that sin is Here is a Paraphrase instead of a Version more fully to express this sense The in quo makes the sense of the Latin Interpreter past doubt This is the first argument from these verses Arg. 2. from the same verses especially 18 They that are under condemnation by Adam's sin have original sin at least the imputed part But infants are under condemnation for Adam's sin go infants have original sin If I prove no more but that they are under condemnation for the minor it is enough for the consequence is thence apparent The major is plain in that condemnation is only for sin and infants have no sin but original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as essentially related to culpa as poena is The minor is proved from ver 18. By the offence of one judgment came on all men to condemnation or as the Syriack rendereth it For the offence of one condemnation is on all or as the Ethiopick All men are condemned so ver 15. Through the offence of one many are dead That All men includeth infants here the former arguments prove This one 18 th ver of Rom. 5. were there no more in all the Scripture is so plain for an imputation of Adams sin on all to condemnation that it might end the controversy Both major and minor I yet further confirm 1. That it is a condemnation proving the condemned to be sinners by just imputation is manifest 1. in that ver 13 14. sin is hence said to be imputed to the sufferers 2. ver 12. they are said to have sinned 3. ver 19. they are said to be made sinners If any say that this signifieth but metonymically to be used as sinners I answer 1. He that would make what his list of God's plain words by pretended unproved metonymies is not to be believed 2. If it were true yet it must mean such a using men as sinners as implyeth them to be justly so reputed and their being sinners must be connoted as the cause as it is in all punishment It is surely a penal evil to the adult by the adversaries confession and here 's no distinction 3. To be made righteous which is the opposite member is more than to be used as righteous though we have no sin at all inherent or imputed go to be made sinners is more than to be used as sinners though we have no sin at all inherent or imputed 4. That evil interpretation doth but accuse God of injustice of which anon 2. And for the minor it is sufficient to prove that infants are included 1. Because infants die on this account 2. Because it is a being made sinners by one man's disobedience ver 19. and a being dead and under condemnation through one man's offence as ver 15. 18. that is mentioned and those that are now adult had their relation in infancy to Adam's offence as well as after It is not actual sin that brings them to be thus related to Adam It is both by one offence ver 18. and by the offence of one ver 17. and ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by the sin of one It is not go the effect of actual sins of the adult that the Apostle here principally speaks of much less only them but it is the participation and imputation of that one mans offence which he opposeth to the righteousness of one Arg. 3. from the punishment of infants If infants are punished they have original sin But infants are punished go they have original sin for they have no other The consequence is certain because it is essential to punishment to be propter malum morale the effect of sin as the meritorious cause All that requireth proof is the minor which I have proved at large in another disputation of the guilt of our immediate Parents sins To which I add 1. God doth not ordinarily at least afflict any rational creature with death but for their sin But God doth ordinarily afflict infants even with death go he doth it for their sin The minor is too well known The major I prove thus 1. In the lamentations of Jeremy the pains of the sucking children are mentioned often among the rest and of all it s said ch 3. 33. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men that is He doth it not till he be provoked by their sins But if he afflict even unto death all infants that so die in the World without their desert by sin then he doth it willingly even because he will do it without their demerit But wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sin ver 39. Though it be the adult that principally complain yet this intimateth that all suffer for their sin Ezek. 18. 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die saith the Lord God 32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God Ezek. 33. 11. Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Much less hath he so much pleasure in the death of innocents as to kill them ordinarily without their desert Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death Scripture speaks of no other death to man but what is the fruit of sin 1 Cor. 15. In Adam all die and Gen. 3. 19. Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return extends to all the posterity of Adam ordinarily which shews some participation in the sin or else why should we all participate so much of the suffering for it 1 Cor. 15. 26. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death By enemy is meant a penal evil which Christ was to remove as our Redeemer go even to infants death is a penal evil 1 Cor. 15. 56. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is
the Law that is As a serpent could not wound us without its sting so neither could death have any power over us to kill us but for sin nor sin have any force to oblige us to this punishment but by the Law This is spoken of the death of infants as well as others unless you will deny their resurrection go sin is the sting that is the deserving cause even of their death Mic. 1. 5. For the transgression of Jacob is all this and for the sins of the house of Israel Hence Satan is said to have the power of death Heb 2. 14. as the executioner of God's wrath for sin from whom Christ delivereth us 2. If the death of infants be an act of God's justice on them then it is a punishment for it is no act of remunerative justice go it must be of punitive justice if of any But it is an act of God's justice on them as I prove 1. It is the execution of God's sentence Gen. 3. 19. go it is an act of his justice on them that were sentenced which was mankind 2. It is their condemnation Rom. 5. 18. go it is an act of justice on them 3. Subjects are ordinarily secured from being by their Soveraigns put to death without any desert of theirs even by the justice of the Soveraign but infants are God's subjects go ordinarily they are secured by his justice from being put to death by him without any desert of theirs The major is proved 1. From the very nature of Government and Justice Governing Justice consisteth in giving to all the subjects according to their deserts ut bonis bene sit malis male go to kill the innocent and that ordinarily is contrary to Governing Justice 2. From the Law of Nature and Scripture which constantly threatneth the sinner and only the sinner and promiseth good to them that sin not Now the contrary opinion 1. either denieth God to be a King to infants of which anon or 2. denieth his Justice 3. and nullifieth the use of his Law which is to be Norma judicii 2. That infants are God's subjects is proved 1. In that they are of the number of reasonable creatures though yet they have not the use of reason and go are not perfect members of his Kingdom 2. In that they are to be entred into the holy Covenant with him as his subjects Deut. 29. c. 3. In that they have promises and threatnings in his Laws 4. They are subjects in all particular Common-wealths which are but parts of his universal Kingdom But this I have proved at large in my Treatise of Infants Church-membership and Baptism Obj. But God is an absolute Lord as well as a King or Ruler and go may do with his own as he list Answ His dominion or propriety is in order of nature antecedent to his Government or Kingdom and so in that antecedent instant he may do with his own what he will and so he may still but then by becoming a Governor to the rational nature he thereby signifieth that he will give to all according to their works or moral aptitude for God cannot be an unjust Governor nor without justice And his Laws do signifie this yet more Moreover the contrary opinion overthroweth all our consolation and leaveth us uncertain whether God will not damn all the godly at least it denieth them any comfort from the light or law of Nature and the justice of God though they had no sin of their own For if God notwithstanding all his Governing Justice may and do ordinarily kill the innocent because he is an absolute Lord then he may damn the innocent hereafter for ought we know notwithstanding his governing justice For instance the adversaries must on the same grounds say that for ought they know all infants that die in infancy are damned For God may no question torment his own as he is an absolute owner of them as well as kill them And if his natural justice give no security from damnation to the innocent then neither can his righteous Laws and then they can have no security at all which is false and injurious to God and man Obj. Bruits die without their desert Answ God is not the Rector of bruits nor are they his subjects and go he is not engaged by any relation to deal with them in justice nor are they capable of justice remunerative or vindictive nor are they under any Law Arg. 4. Infants are capable of moral good and have such go infants are capable of moral evil and have it The capacity is the chief thing in controversy for if we prove that they are capable of having virtue or vice in habit or disposition without consent then I find none that will deny the consequence that de facto they have it That infants have moral good is proved thus 1. Else they could not be inwardly sanctified 2. Else they did not morally differ one from another 3. And so one were no more amiable to God than another 4. Nor one any more fit for Heaven than another and so none should be saved that die in infancy as being unqualified for salvation or if holiness inherent be needless then all might be saved as well as any 5. And then Baptism nor any priviledges of holy birth or dedication to God could give no hope of any moral good upon them 6. And thus they are made meer bruits that are capable of no moral good or evil All which are most absurd and disproved in my Treatise of Infant Baptism The consequence is undeniable If they are capable of moral good without actual moral volitions so are they of moral evil for there is eadem ratio If a disposition to holy action be a moral good or virtue then a disposition to evil actions is vice or moral evil Arg. 5. Infants have a privation of moral good but a privation of moral good is a moral evil go infants have a moral evil The major is proved in that Adam's posterity should have been born in original righteousness or moral goodness if he had not sinned go it is a privation of a moral good to be born without it and not a meer negation The minor is undeniable privations belonging by reduction to the kind of that which they are a privation of else a privation would be but a meer negation that is no privation at all Arg. 6. All that are the members of Jesus Christ and saved by him or for whom he died as a Redeemer are when existent sinners but infants are the members of Christ and saved by him he is their Redeemer and died for them go they are when existent sinners go they have original sin The major I prove from Matth. 1. 21. Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins If it be the very reason of his denomination why he is called a Saviour because he saveth his people from their sins then he is a Saviour to none
a fault These two God taketh not away by pardon for it is impossible that which is done should be undone or that which was a fault should be no fault The third which is the obligation to punishment is it that is done away by pardon Now suppose this perfectly done away to Adam or any godly man yet this pardon is but for himself and he propagateth to his children the two former reatum facti culpae which were never done away and then the third obligation to punishment will follow immediately per nudam resultantiam as long as they have themselves no pardon 2. Christ is the Quickening Spirit though Adam was a Living Soul and Christ is now the Fountain of Grace and gives it out in the measure and on the terms that he seeth meet And as God past sentence on mankind before he granted his pardon to Adam and promised the Messiah so his pardon was no full remitting of that sentence but such a personal remission to Adam as should consist with much punishment in his imperfection in grace and his toyl and labour and death c. and with the guilt of his posterity till each man received from Christ the Mediator his own remission And so as he gave in the promise a pardon to Adam he hath on the same condition given it to all Adam had not power to cure himself when he had poisoned his nature but Christ being become the common Physitian hath prepared a remedy for him and us and if we take it as Adam did we shall be healed And the infants are included in the Covenant with their Parents So that notwithstanding all these objections the 12th Argument standeth good Arg. 13. If natural corruption be in infants viciously disposing them to evil and against good then original sin is in them But such corruption is in them go c. The minor is proved by the common experience of the World All infants shew their inclination to sin as soon as they can act it yea so strong and obstinate doth it prove that frequently it resisteth all the endeavours of the most prudent diligent godly Parents that would root it up and of Masters and Teachers that apply both Doctrine and Discipline against it And never is it conquered but by special grace and never is it so restrained in any that live to the use of reason as not to break out into many actual sins And if all men in all ages in all the World do sin and frequently sin it shews that there is some corrupt inclination in the nature of man to sin for the effect revealeth the cause yea it is so great corruption as to lead into some kind of moral necessity of sinning or moral impossibility of not sinning or else some one in the World would have escaped it which none did but Christ and the Papists except but the Virgin Mary Obj. Adam sinned that yet had no corruption Answ The fall of one or two may come from wilful carelesness or inconsiderateness where there is no corrupt inclination antecedent but so cannot the fall of all the World especially their so frequent falls and ordinary obstinacy in sin If now and then a man only should die we might impute it to some accident but when all mankind dieth we are convinced that mortality even a disposedness to death in some sort necessitating it is become natural to him so here Obj. Infants have the use of sense as soon as they are born and are long coming to the use of reason and reason is long weak when sense is strong and this by reason of infancy as such and go in all this time the prevalency of sense can be no sin and so long a prevalency must needs breed a habit and this is it which you take for original corruption Answ 1. If sin had not made the appetite inordinate infants might have lived till they had overgrown their infancy without transgressing an ordinate appetite would have carried them to no inordinate acts And they would not have been so liable to many of those evils that now provoke their passion and to cry when they are hurt would be no sin And so as they had grown up their temptations would have been but proportionable to their reason and go they might well have overcome them As children have not the reason of grown men so neither have they their temptations They have not worldly riches or honours or dignities to care for they are not tempted to the sins of lust And as now the love of their Parents keepeth them even in childhood from transgressing the commands of their Parents and maketh them desirous to please them so would the love of God have made them desirous to please him and keep his commands 2. We see sin now break out in children before custom can engage them to such a habit and against that custom which Parents engage them in against it and with greater obstinacy than that meer custom could so soon produce So much for the minor The consequence of the major is proved 1. From the purity of God's nature and of his Law and from the nature of this corruption This corruption is a disconformity to the holy nature will and law of God and that in his subjects go it is sin The inclinations contrary to his holy nature and image in a rational creature must needs be abhorred of God because they are such And the fleshly mind the body of death is contrary to the Law 2. These same corruptions which are born with us remain in the unsanctified and partly in others till they come to age and then they are sin even the same degree that was born with us for it is not only the degree that custom after superaddeth that is sin Certainly that absence of good and backwardness to it and proneness to evil is sin in the adult go it was sin before For it was the same thing and in a true subject capable of vice and virtue 3. The only Argument against it is vain viz. from the involuntariness as shall be shewed Arg. 14. Adam and Eve had moral good before any actual volition go infants are capable of moral good before any actual volition and consequently actual volition or willing is not of necessity to the morality of a habit or inclination and go they are capable of moral evil The antecedent is proved by the concession of all that Adam had whether naturally or supernaturally the image of God and virtue or holiness ut principium before he acted it and so had original righteousness by creation or gift which was bonum morale and made him capable of the divine complacency and acceptance The parity of reason proveth the consequences Or if there be any disparity it makes against the adversary infants being virtually pre-existent in their Parents Arg. 15. The doctrine that numbreth infants with bruits in point of morality and felicity is false but such is that doctrine which denieth original
Adam's actual sin and so in the guilt of the actual sins of our neerer Parents as to meer desert For our nature was in him our persons though not existent were seminally in him we come not from Adam as our Creator that makes us of nothing nor as our Fabricator that makes us of an extrinsick pre-existent matter but as our Progenitor who deriveth a being to us by communication out of himself and therefore can give us no better than he had himself either qualitatively or relatively and therefore being a son of death he could not beget sons of life being guilty he could not beget persons that are innocent nor bring a clean thing from himself who was unclean Prop. 17. This natural interest in the guilt of Progenitors is only from those sins which they committed while we were in their loins or seminally in them and not from any that they committed after we were born but the reputative guilt which we have from the sins of societies whereof we are naturally or electively members may befall us as much and rather from the sins which they commit when we are at age and have the fullest use of reason therefore all men should be careful what society they voluntarily joyn themselves to or abide in and should diligently endeavour the reformation of such societies and when they are falling into ruine past hope of recovery should foresee the fall and save themselves Prop. 18. It is both these sorts of guilt which adhere to us in our infancy from our Parents sins 1. The guilt which followeth our natural interest as we are seminally in them adhereth to us all as soon as we have our being 2. The other is varied according to the several societies that we are members of 1. As we are members of the great Common-wealth of the World whereof God is the Soveraign so we are guilty by reason of the sin which mankind in our first Parents committed in the beginning For God dealt with Adam in his first Laws not only as an individual person but also as whole mankind he and his wife being then the whole World And so as we are first guilty of death because of our natural interest in Adam's sin as being his Progeny so next we are also guilty by reason of this civil or reputative interest as being members of the sinful World or of sinful mankind which later yet supposeth the former as its ground and doth not arise from any Covenant or Will of God to impute that to us which we were never guilty of by any natural interest of our own Not that we were personally guilty before we were personally existent but that we were then seminally guilty as we had a seminal being in the nature and person of our Progenitors and when our persons from that seed do first exist they are guilty persons as soon as persons And therefore when man had first sinned God that had given him a Law as being all mankind and the root of a Posterity in course of nature to spring from him did also in the same relation call him to judgment and sentence him for his sin and therefore passed such a sentence which we see by experience is executed on all mankind and as the individuals multiply from the first condemned root so doth the guilt and the sentenced punishment adhere to each individual And in the same relation was the promise of a Redeemer made to him As it was not Adam only but all mankind that is meant by God's sentence Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return c. yet only Adam as then personally existent and condemned and all others as seminally in him and the sentence makes its first seizure on their persons when their persons shall first exist and not before Even so is it by the guilt as it is by the sentence It was only Adam's person that was at first guilty but not only as a particular private person but as mankind and as the root of all that should succeed and therefore we were seminally guilty in him and are personally guilty from him when we first personally exist 2. And as we are thus guilty as members of sinful mankind so also as members of sinful Families and in that respect may for the sins of our neerest Parents lie under Family punishments 3. So are we also as members of wicked Common-wealths and particular subordinate Societies in those Common-wealths And therefore it is so common for God to punish men for common abhominations and provoking enormities which yet themselves did not commit 4. The like may be said of heretical impure and scandalous Churches whose members become liable to Church-punishments as those aforesaid to Common-wealth-punishments Prop. 19. It is one thing to be so far guilty or to deserve punishment as that God may in the execution of vindictive justice lay it on us as our due unless remedied and it 's another thing to be so far guilty as that God must punish us or else be unjust or not attain the ends of right Government by ordinary means It is the first guilt only which I say ariseth from the sins of our Parents to us the second I neither affirm nor deny as not intending now to meddle with that Controversy Prop. 20. Though according to the strict rigor of the Law of nature or works considered alone God might for the sin of Adam or our neerer Parents adjudge us to everlasting death as our due because of our forementioned participation therein yet hath he provided such a remedy in the Gospel that no man shall everlastingly perish for any such sin who is made partaker of that remedy And therefore though the Gospel findeth men under such a guilt by nature yet doth it not bind it on them but free them from it if they be in Christ therefore when God telleth men that if they repent and believe it is not their Fathers sins that shall damn them yet bids them take heed lest they perish by their own this doth not deny that we deserve death for Adam's or our other Parents sins but only that if we repent and be our selves evangelically righteous the deserved evil shall not befall us The remedy supposeth and not denieth the malady Prop. 21. A further difference may yet appear between the guilt of Adam's first sin and our guilt of his following sins or the sins of our neerer Parents if we distinguish between the Fundamentum and the Terminus of guilt and then observe that the Terminus is but one and the same but the Foundation is divers The punishment which we are guilty of or liable to by Adam's sin is the privation of our whole felicity The new guilt of our neerer Parents sin or Adam's further sins yea or our own actual sin can bring no new punishment on us according to the covenant of Works though according to the covenant of Grace which giveth new mercies whose privation we are capable of we may have new punishments
them And if I had that as theirs first I must by the same reason have more of theirs And who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean And David's Mother is said to conceive him in sin Psal 51. 8. Let it be noted for answer to the objections from Ezek. 18. c. 1. That there is by the Covenant of Grace a pardon with right to Christ and Life freely given to all the faithful and their infant-seed as by them having full power thereto in Covenant given up to Christ Now no one is damned for pardoned sins The infant is at once guilty of Adam's and his Parents sin and at once his nature receiveth pravity from both but immediately only by the immediate Parents and at once both are pardoned to him and this pardon solemnly sealed and delivered in Baptism Therefore well may God say to the pardoned to the penitent and to the innocent that he shall not die for his Parents sins no not for Adam's 2. For the Text speaketh to the adult and to men that thought themselves innocent and that they suffered for their Parents sins and not their own And God assureth them 1. that if they are innocent they shall not die 2. yea if they be repenting persons and pardoned and obedient evangelically hating all the sins of their wicked Parents they shall live 3. yea this is true of their children also for their sakes But this is not because the Law never judged them guilty and worthy of death but because the Grace of Christ forgiveth it else the Text would exempt all infants from the guilty of death for Adam's sin But there is not a word in the Text to prove 1. that children need no pardon for their guilty of Parents sins 2. or that those that are not pardoned being themselves unsanctified or if adult live wickedly as their Parents did shall not die for them 3. or that such sins of Parents are not the cause of such guilt and pravity in the child as that he is truly said to die for his own sin Sect. 43. XIII Yet further methinks to a conformable Doctor the judgment of the Church of England in her Liturgy should not be insignificant Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our fore-Fathers neither take thou vengeance on our sins In what sense do men subscribe this and daily use it 1. Do they think that the Church meaneth only Adam's sin by our fore-Fathers 2. Or that by not-remembring they mean not-pardoning and not-punishing 3. Or do they think that they pray for the dead in Purgatory Hell or Heaven Or rather do they not imitate David and the Jewish Church and Ezra Nehemiah Daniel c. who confessed that they were punished for their Fathers sins Sect. 44. I conclude this subject with a second request to the Christian Reader to pity and pray for the poor distressed Church of Christ which is distracted and distressed thus even by such as are most devoted to its service through the great weakness of our judgments and the unhappy passions and strivings that thence follow Either I or this worthy person are mistaken or else we differ not When I look to the Person only and not to the Evidence nor to the Consenters I have far greatest reason to suspect that I am liker to erre than he And if it prove so the evidence yet seemeth to me so full for what I hold that I am almost hopeless of being otherwise perswaded And my judgment is not at my command How then shall I avoid the injury of souls But yet I think that to hold our selves more guilty of our Parents sins than we are is no dangerous damning error it may molest us but not undo us and I never saw many much molested by it But if either we differ not when yet he giveth you so loud an Alarm or if it be he that erreth indeed alas what must the Church expect from the too great number of ignorant and ungodly Teachers when it must be thus used by the Learned and the Godly My thoughts are 1. that it deserveth tears from faithful Ministers to observe that so considerable a part of the common guilt and misery of all mankind should by godly men be no more confessed and lamented 2. And that by those that for any denial or extenuation of our original sin as from Adam are so heinously and justly offended with the erroneous yea ready to vilifie men as Arminians if not Socinians that they think come near it 3. That ever the stream of a Party Reputation Interest Example or whatever else of that kind should with so many good men have so great a power in making truth or error duty or sin good or evil orthodox or heretical in their conceits and so much faction he found in their Religion 4. That ever so many millions should be taught impenitency in so plain a case when repentance and confession have so considerable a place among the requisites to remission 5. That ever so many millions should by Preachers be taught that they have no need of a Saviour nor of Pardon nor to pray for Pardon for so much of their guilty and punishment 6. That ever so much of the plain stream of Scripture-evidence can be denied and made light of by good men that cry up the Scripture authority and sufficiency even when they can lay a great stress in some unprofitable hurtful controversie upon some one Text whose sense is not to be certainly understood 7. That ever good and learned Teachers should be so conceited of their own conceptions as in their confidence in such a cause to brand God's truth with the name of error and their brethren as dangerous men for not erring as they do 8. And finally that the poor people must be under such grievous perplexing temptations as I before mentioned and that the Papists should be thus hardened in their opinion that we shall never be at peace and concord unless we unite in their usurping tyrannical Peace-maker And that Poor Scholars and young Ministers must be thus frightned from Truth Duty Charity and Peace and men made believe that the Church is about to be set on fire if we are told of that which is contrary to our former opinions This must be lamented if it be not I but others that here erre Sect. 45. But yet before I end he calls me so loud to consider of another matter that I must not deny his invitation In my Direct for Cure of Church-Divisions Dir. 42. I said Your belief of the necessary Articles of Faith must be made your own and not taken meerly on the authority of any And in all points of belief and practice which are of necessity to salvation you must ever keep company with the universal Church for it were not the Church if it erred in these And in matters of peace and concord the greater part must be your guide that is caeteris paribus In matters of humane obedience
but sinners but the antecedent is true go c. The antecedent is in the Text most plain The consequence is undeniable because the essence or formal reason denominateth go he can be called a Saviour to none other And to prevent all cavils note that 1. it is sin it self and not meer suffering much less undeserved suffering that connoteth not sin as the cause that is here mentioned 2. That it is their sin and not other mens sin that they are said to be saved from Nothing go but violence can evade this evidence Matth. 9. 12. The whole need not a Physitian but the sick To be sick is to be sinful to be a Physitian is to be the Saviour go those that have no sin have no need of a Saviour Eph. 5. 23 25 26 27. Christ is the Head of the Church and Saviour of the Body and how doth he save them Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing So that to be a Saviour to the body is to sanctifie cleanse and wash it that it may be without spot Those go that have no spots or filth to be washed and cleansed from cannot be of that body or have Christ for their Saviour Rev. 1. 5 6. The Apostle speaks in the name of the Church Vnto him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood be glory c. If infants come to Heaven they must give this praise to Christ for washing them from their sins as well as others His work on the Cross was to purge or make purgation of sin Heb. 1. 3. He died for our sins 1 Cor. 15. 3. He died for us while we were sinners and enemies to reconcile us to God Rom. 5. 6 8 10. He came to give his life a ransome for many Matth. 20. 28. He gave himself a ransome for all 1 Tim. 2. 6. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to righteousness by whose stripes we are bealed 1 Pet. 24 25. For Christ also once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3. 18. Christ our Passover is sasacrificed for us 1 Cor. 5. 7. He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. 9. 26. He was once offered to bear the sins of many ver 28. By his own blood he entred into the holy place having obtained eternal Redemption He offered himself without spot to God to purge our consciences c. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament they that are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9. 12 14 15. He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole World 1 Joh. 2. 2. If one died for all then were all dead 2 Cor. 5. 14. that is in sin and for sin Joh. 1. 29 Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World A multitude of such passages of Scripture tell us that Christ's death was for sinners only and go that he died for none but sinners for what need had the innocent of a satisfaction to Justice and of a Sacrifice and Ransome and Redemption No one text of Scripture can be produced in which Christ is said to die for any that had no sin or to be the Redeemer or Saviour of any such And go to say that he died for infants to procure them supernatural Grace and Heaven and not to save them from their sin is vain Scripture knows no such design of Christ's death And the very privation of that rectitude which they call supernatural grace is sin as is manifested nor can a rational creature be shut out of Heaven but penally for his sins it being a very grievous punishment And for the minor that Christ died for infants and is their Saviour c. it 's proved 1. In that he is oft said to die for all the World 2. In that there is no other name under Heaven given by which we can be saved 3. In that he hath taken infants into his Church and Covenant before and since his incarnation and took them in his arms and blessed them and said his Kingdom was of such 4. In that he would have gathered the Jewish infants with their Parents into his Church Matth. 23. 37. 5. Else they are not Christians no not imperfect ones nor to be baptized Many more proofs I have given in the foresaid Treatise of Infant Baptism And few I think deny the minor Arg. 7. All that ought to be baptized with the Christian Baptism are sinners But some infants ought to be baptized with the Christian Baptism go they are sinners The minor I shall suppose to be proved in the foresaid Treatise The major I have proved at large in my Disput of Right to Sacraments especially pag. 79 80. where it 's proved that Christ hath commanded or instituted no other Baptism but what is for remission of sin to p. 88. The sign it self the washing by water and burying under it and rising from under sheweth that this is essential in the signification what else but sin are we to be washed from Read over all the texts of Scripture that speak of Baptism as instituted by Christ and when you have found that no one of them intimateth such a thing as baptizing them that are no sinners washing them that are not unclean then tell us why we should believe that there is such a thing Nay it importeth a false dissimulation with God when we will assert infants to be washed by the blood of Christ when we believe that they have no sin and need no such washing Arg. 8. If infants have no sin they must either never come to Judgment or be justified by the Law or their meer innocency without remission by a Redeemer but the consequent is false go so is the antecedent The consequence is undeniable in that no justice can condemn the innocent the Law will justify them that have no sin for its commination hath nothing against them such go need not pardon by a Redeemer The falshood of both parts of the consequent is proved easily 1. Many Scriptures shew that all men shall be judged Heb. 9. 27. all that die Rom. 14. 12. Joh. 5. 28 29. all that are in the graves with many such places 2. If infants be not judged they would neither be justified nor condemned but that 's not true go c. 2. And that all infants nor any are not justified by the Law or their own Innocency is plain in the Apostle's arguings Rom. 3. 4 and 5. throughout and in the Epist to Galat. Rom. 3. 20. by the deeds of the Law there
shall no flesh be justified in his sight Rom. 4. proveth that even to Abraham and his seed justification was by remission of sin through faith in Christ and not by the Law or their own innocency And if it was so with Abraham's seed it is so still with our seed Arg. 9. Rom. 3. 23. 9 10 c. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation c. go infants have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and must be justified by this propitiation for sin Ver. 9. We have before proved that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin Ver. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God If men will groundlesly say that all these universals are to be limited to the adult they do but say they will believe what they list and words shall signifie what they will Obj. The Text speaks of actors in sin Answ True because it speaks of all the World among whom the adult actors were the principal part Obj. The word All is to be taken limitedly in many other Texts Answ 1. What of that shall we go deny its properest signification without a proved necessity and shall words be taken improperly by us at our pleasure because they are so sometimes where we may prove it 2. Will you allow this plea to them that use it against the texts that speak for Christ's dying for all when yet they have as fair pretence 3. The scope of the Apostle and the oft repeated universals plainly shew that it is the guilt and condemnation on one side and the justification on the other side of all simply that are condemned or justified even of all the World that he speaks of And he lays the strength of his Argument upon the universality for if any might have pleaded not-guilty before God and justified by the Law or their Innocency it had spoil'd the Apostle's argument So many plain Scriptures are not to be forced Arg. 10. If infants without a Redeemer should have been all shut out of Heaven and denied everlasting happiness then are they guilty of original sin But the Antecedent is true go so is the Consequent The minor is granted by those that do oppose us If it were not it 's easily proved 1. From all those Scriptures that appropriate salvation to the Church and to the members of Christ and to such as have it by his purchase and procurement who hath the keys of the Kingdom 2. From those Scriptures that tell us that if any have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that except a man be regenerate and new Born he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with many the like 3. From the incapacity of an unholy soul to see and love God and so to be happy it being a contradiction And God hath given us no ground to believe that he will sanctify all infants after death and that without any satisfaction for their sin by the death of Christ The consequence of the major proposition is proved thus Infants having souls made capable of immortality either shall live immortally or not If not that privation of everlasting life is an evil so great that any rational man would choose a perpetual tolerable punishment to escape it and God would not thus use so many subjects of his Kingdom to whom he hath undertaken to be a King and judge them righteously and all without any measure of sin in them And I find not yet that the adversaries assert this If they do they make infants to be but meer bruits of which anon If they live an immortal life and rise with others then either in Heaven or out of Heaven in happiness or not If not in happiness which is before proved and by them granted then it must be in misery 1. Because the very privation of that happiness is half hell and more 2. Because there is no middle state to a living rational creature they will have feeling and knowledge and go they shall feel good or evil to them and they cannot but know that they are deprived of Heaven and Happiness which knowledge must cause a positive grief And thus God doth afflict them by the greatest privation and some positive pain which Reason or Scripture or his relation of a righteous King and Judge will not suffer us to think that he doth without any sin of theirs For shall not the Judge of all the World do righteously Will he destroy the righteous with the wicked far be it from him Gen. 18. 23 24 25. Had all the infants of the old World of Sodom of Amalek of Midian been wholly free from participating in sin they had not been destroyed by a righteous Judge Arg. 11. If infants are under God's displeasure or deprived of his acceptance and complacency then are they guilty of original sin but the antecedent is true go so is the consequent If they were in the favour of God they would be saved for all the subjects of his Kingdom have the blessings and rewards of loyal subjects that are in favour with him but without Christ and pardon through his blood they would not be saved go c. If they were not under his displeasure he would not deny them his sanctifying grace and heavenly inheritance which they are capable of and which is the portion of his faithful ones But these he doth deny to some and would deny to more or all if it were not for their pardon and reconciliation through Christ Nor would he torment them with pain as he doth many in this life and after kill them and then shut them out of Heaven if he were well pleased with them The consequence is proved in that nothing but sin can make God displeased with a rational creature Only moral evil can deprive them of his favour Were original corruption but malum physicum such a natural evil as blindness lameness sickness madness c. God would not withdraw his favour for it Man hateth a serpent or a toad that have no sin because their natures are contrary to ours but no meer physical evil is evil to God or contrary to his nature and go none such is hated by him A toad is no more contrary or odious to God than a lark go for such evil infants could not fall under his displeasure He loves the sick the lame the leprous as well as the most sound Arg. 12. Infants have a nature derived from their Parents who were corrupt and guilty go they cannot be uncorrupt and innocent The antecedent is undeniable The reason of the consequence is because the cause can produce no effect that 's better than it self What the effect receiveth is from its cause and the cause cannot give that
upon our selves are but misery and not properly sin Sin may make a man sick or lame or blind or mad and yet these be no sins but the effects of sins Sin may kill us and yet death be no sin There must be therefore some other formal reason which can be nothing but the disconformity to the rule 2. Adam as was said before had original righteousness which was imputable to him as a moral good before his actions go it is not necessary to the morality or imputability of a principle that it be the consequent of our acts 3. Jesus Christ had moral good before his humane action go the same will follow 4. Infants that are sanctified have moral good that is not the consequent of their acts go c. 5. The dedication by believing Parents and entring the child into the Covenant of God is taken to all the ends thereof as if it were the infants act 6. Among men the will of the Parents is in many cases reputatively the will of the child and children receive good or are deprived of it and oft-times penally for the Parents acts Obj. 3. No righteous Judges do punish the children for the Parents sin Answ 1. It is not for the Parents only imputed but their own contracted that God doth punish them And he takes that cognisance of the heart that man doth not 2. And he is more holy and just than man 3. And yet all Common-wealths are directed by the light of nature to punish infants for their Parents sins as naturally participant The Laws do threaten the posterity of many offenders for the Parents sins and Judges sentence them accordingly As that Traytors or some other most odious offenders shall be deprived of their honours and estates and their children after them for ever It cannot be said here that this is but an affliction to the posterity and not a penalty or that it is a meer consequent of the Parents sin and not the effect for it is expressed in the Law and Judgment and is malum naturale propter malum civile vel morale and it 's on a subject And it 's a privation of the good that he should else have possessed and many positive evils of mind and body care sorrow want labour c. follow thereupon Obj. 4. But God hath told us that the soul that sinneth shall die and the child shall not die for the Parents sins Answ 1. go it followeth that children that do die have sin of their own 2. The text plainly speaketh of those children that see the evil of their Parents sins and do not after them but renounce them and live in righteousness themselves which is nothing to the present case Obj. 5. It seems to make God the Author of sin when he will cause us to be born of sinful Parents and infuse a soul into sinful flesh when we cannot help it Answ 1. I have proved that it is the denial of original sin that makes God the Author of sin resolving it into his workmanship or denial of sufficient or necessary grace so that no man in the World avoideth sin 2. But the true doctrine of original sin doth manifest that it is not of God as I have shewed God as Creator setled the nature of his creatures and the course of propagating them before man sinn'd and he was no ways bound to change the course of nature when man had corrupted it to prevent our being born sinners Though we know not fully the manner of God's concourse in our generation and how he causeth souls yet we are sure it is according to the first established course of nature appointed in the creation as much as the generation of any other creature is and that 's enough God was not the cause of Adam's transgression and his Law of propagation went before it and his concourse with the Parents maketh him no more the cause than the Sun is of the poison of a toad Obj. 6. But it seemeth cruelty to damn infants for that which they could not help Answ The deniers of Original sin do much more impute cruelty to God as I shall prove For 1. They confess as much of the misery and sufferings of infants as we assert 2. And they maintain that God inflicts all this without the least desert of theirs For the first they confess that infants die and they confess that God is not obliged to revive them and that without Christ they should have no part in glory If God may annihilate them or deny them an immortal life they cannot deny but he may cause their souls to live and their bodies to revive if he please and if so that he may inflict as much positive pain as shall be proportioned to the evil of annihilation And it is a great deal of suffering that man would choose to prevent annihilation They confess that God may make them to be toads when such creatures are what they are without sin and so continue them for ever And who would not endure much misery as a man rather than be a toad or serpent They confess that infants have immortal souls at least capable of immortality and that God is no ways bound to annihilate them and that he may shut them out of happiness which is half damnation and that in equality with the worst it being the same Heaven that all men lose and if they are rational creatures they must needs have the torment of positive grief in the despairing apprehension of their loss And for our parts we presume not to be so far acquainted with the secret judgments of the Lord as to determine whether infants shall have a greater degree of misery in their damnation than all this which the adversaries grant So that we differ not about the degree of suffering 2. And then for the cause of it there 's the difference We say that God inflicteth not all this but for their own desert by original sin And our Adversaries say that he doth it without the least fault or desert of theirs And then I would know whether there be any reason why God doth all this against infants but because he will do it If man had never sinned he might have done it according to them If it be said that he punisheth the Parents in the children I answer 1. What punishment to Parents is the everlasting loss or suffering of the children 2. Or what punishment is the present death of children to harlots and unnatural persons that desire to be rid of them 3. And how can he cause the subjects of his Kingdom to suffer so much without their own desert 4. And if their natural interest make them not in some measure partakers of their Parents sin what reason why they any more than other creatures should be chosen to the suffering And here I would propound this question What if God had left it in the beginning to Adam's free will whether he would beget a man or a toad or a serpent Would
of Adam's actual sin so far as we are guilty and we being as truly the children of our neere Parents as of him and seminally in them as well as in him it follows that we have the same natural interest in their sins as in his and therefore the same guilt and reason why God should impute them to us Unless the change of Laws do make a difference which if it do it can be no more than by adding the Law of Grace to that of Nature to remedy its obligation For the nature of things being still the same the same Law of nature still remains and therefore children must now be naturally guilty of all Parents sins as well as then before that guilt be dissolved by remission Though now God will not punish the adult meerly for Parents sins imputed to us yet he might do it if he would supposing he had not by the Law of Grace determined the contrary if it be proved that he might do it then Moreover as then God might suppose a civil interest in Adam's sin as we were parts-future of the same World of mankind on presupposition of our natural interest as his off-spring so now though our Parents be not the root of mankind as Adam was and that 's the main difference yet seeing our neerest Parents may be the root of Families or other Societies whereof God is also the Rector he may suppose another sort of civil interest or guilt of their sins upon us As he imputed Adam's sin to us as he was Rector of all mankind so may he our neerer Parents as he is Ruler of a Family or of some more remote as Ruler of a Common-wealth Obj. But that Law which made us guilty of Adam's sin is abrogated and instead of it is made the Law of Grace God doth not now say to any In the day thou sinnest thou shalt die Answ I know that commination stands not alone and unremedied and I yield that the promissory part is ceased but still every sin doth leave upon us a guilt of death till Christ take it off or else what need could we have of the pardon of it Obj. But that Law was particular and positive in the day thou eatest thou shalt die go it is ceased Answ The particular prohibition of that act of eating is ceased cessante objecto But that particular was grounded on and presupposed a general and that which you call positive how fitly I now enquire not was first natural as to the duness of penalty for each particular sin The Law of nature first saith death is the due wages of sin or every sin deserveth death and this Law doth still remain So that though as to the event we have not that reason to expect eternal death now for Parents sins nor for every sinful act of our own as before the promise of Christ we might have had yet that is not because the Law is abrogated which is the very standing Law of nature nor because now each sin deserveth not such death but because we have now a remedy at hand to put away the guilt I am sure this is the commonest judgment of those Divines that are most against Arminianism for they maintain that all the unbelievers are still under the Law of works it self as to the cursing and punishing power Arg. 2. If we receive the guilt of one sin from our immediate Parents then may we as well receive the guilt of more But we do receive the guilt of one from them go The antecedent is plain For we receive from them the guilt of Adam's sin It is theirs before it can be ours Adam delivered it not immediately to us As we received our nature and persons from our neerest Parents so did we therewith our guilt of that sin The consequence is proved in that there is the same reason of both Why did not our Parents propagate us free from the guilt of Adam's sin Because they were not free from it themselves naturally and therefore cannot give us a better nature than they have themselves And so on the same reason it must follow that being themselves guilty of other sins they cannot convey to us a nature not guilty of them If one be therefore ours because it was first theirs and our nature from them the other must be so too Obj. The Law makes the difference for God hath not made us liable to Justice for our neerer Parents sins as he did for the first Answ This is already answered The Law indeed makes a difference as to the event and execution and actual remaining obligation but not as to the desert The Law declares and shews men to be as they are and doth not judge unequally of men that are equal or of equal actions The same Law though remedied is still so far in force Obj. Our Parents if faithful are pardoned and justified and therefore cannot convey to us the guilt of any sin because they have it not themselves Answ It must be carefully understood that pardon takes not away 1. either the reatum culpae so as that person should hereafter be judged not to have done what he did or not to have sinned in so doing 2. nor yet the natural merit of punishment as if that sin and the person for it did cease to deserve death but only it remitteth the punishment deserved and takes away the legal effectual obligation to punishment or that duness of punishment which must bring it upon us So that Parents may nevertheless convey to their children that natural desert which was not removed from themselves 2. And then remission being a free act of God extendeth no further than he pleaseth and therefore unless the covenant to the faithful and their seed do pardon all their guilt to their seed as well as themselves the very effectual obligation to punishment will follow the natural desert of it to those children that have not such a remission And if this would prove any thing it would prove us not guilty of Adam's sin Arg. 3. If we are guilty of more of Adam's sins than the first or than the eating of the forbidden fruit then on the same grounds we may be guilty of the sins of our neerer Parents But the antecedent is true go so is the consequent The antecedent is proved thus If there were the same causes to make us guilty of Adam's following sins as of the first then thâ—â—e is the same guilt But there were the same causes go 1. We were seminally in Adam as well when he committed his second sin as his first 2. The same Law as to the precept and threatning was in force as de futuro when he committed his second sin as when he committed the first 1. It cannot be doubted but Adam sinned oft between the time of his eating the fruit and God's making the promise of a Redeemer For his soul being depraved and turned into a wrong course of action must needs act sinfully 2. Yea we could not be guilty
of his eating the forbidden fruit if we are guilty only of his first sin For that was not the first His unbelief of God and believing the Serpent and others more did go before it 3. Yea the sins that Adam committed after the Promise do in their nature deserve our sufferings as much as the first though that desert had a remedy provided If any still reduce all to God's meer will and say that it was his will in his first actions to deal with Adam as the root of mankind but not in his later sins I must expect till they bring some proof of such a will of God or such a Law and still say that the will and law of God doth not make sinners of innocent men nor make sinners no sinners any otherwise than by pardoning and sanctifying them So that 〈◊〉 were as much in Adam after the promise as before and his sin was of the same demerit naturally and therefore we are as well guilty of that as of the first And then for the consequent it is acknowledged by most of those whom we now oppose that we are equally related to Adam's later sins and to those of our neerer Parents I mean to all that Adam committed before the propagation of his Progeny And there are the same causes as is before manifested Though our neerer Parents were not the root of all mankind as Adam was yet are they as much a cause of us and our nature and of so much of mankind as spring from their loins as Adam was And all the progeny of Cain did spring as truly from him as from Adam And all the World since the Flood were as truly in the loins of Noah as of Adam and so naturally equally interessed in their sins Arg. 4. If our natures may be corrupted more by the sins of our neerer Parents then may they be guilty by them as well as by Adam's But the antecedent I have before proved go The consequence depends on the fameness of the reasons that guilt and depravation should concur from our neerer Parents as well as from our first And it seems that participation in guilt is pre-requisite to the depravation of nature else it might seem some kind of injury to us that another should have power to make us so miserable Sin is commonly called the punishment of sin Arg. 5. If God may without any injustice bring death both temporal and eternal on the son of a sinner without intending it as a punishment to the Son for the Father's sin then may he also without injustice nay in justice inflict the same death as a penalty for the Father's sin But the antecedent is true as I prove thus 1. That which all Rulers may do without injustice that God may do without injustice But all Rulers may without injustice deprive the children of a Traytor or other offender of those enjoyments which the Father hath forfeited himself and which were to have been conveyed from the Father to the child if the Father had not forfeited them If a Traytor forfeit his Lands and Honours his Son is justly deprived of them though the Prince intend it not as a punishment to the Son Because the Father cannot convey to his Son that which he hath not himself as having lost it on his forfeiture and the Son hath no right to it when the Fathers right is gone So if a wicked man do forfeit his right to all blessings in this life or that to come he cannot convey a right to his Son which he had not himself And what other way should that Son have such a right unless God should give it him which he is or was free to do or not It 's true that God by a new covenant hath given this everlasting life to believers but that 's not to all nor doth that deny them to be guilty of their Parents sin before nor yet that it deserveth death still as to its nature and might bring it were it not pardoned 2. God hath no obligation on him according to the Law of works to give health peace or any blessing in this life much less eternal glory to the son of a sinner 2. And for the consequence 1. It is evident from what is said that God cannot be charged with hard or cruel dealing in regard of any wrong that we should suffer if he punish us thus by deprivation for our Parents sins for if it be no cruelty to do the same thing upon the meer occasion of their sins which is unquestionable then it is no cruelty to do it in respect to their sin as the deserving cause 2. And for the point of justice as it is already proved to be non injustum so it may be proved to be justum thus Where there is a real participation in the sin there it is just that there should be a participation in the punishment because of that sin But we did really participate in the sin as of Adam so of our neerer Parents go For the minor they that were seminally in them though not by personal existence did really participate with them in their sin But we were seminally in them go This will be further confirmed in that which followeth Arg. 6. If we should have been guilty of the sin of our neerest Parents though Adam had never sinned then are we guilty of them now But the antecedent is true go Here I suppose that Adam had not sinned and our neerest Parents had If any say this is not to be supposed I answer Though it may not be affirmed to have so been yet we may in dispute suppose it had been Nor have I yet seen it proved that God made any such promise to Adam as to confirm all his posterity on condition that he did not commit that or any sin If Adam had begot a posterity no better than himself was in his first created perfection and under the same Law then they would have been peceable and mutable as he was and liable to the same penalty upon their sin as he was But Adam would have begot a posterity no better than himself for ought we can find by Scripture which no where promiseth him a better that is an immutable or indesectible posterity and they would have been under the same Law for it was suited to their perfect nature go From what is said the antecedent is evident For if we should have been as much in our neerest Parents as we were in Adam and they have been under the same Law then their sin would have brought on us the same guilt and punishment For example if Cain had been the first sinner and Seth had been innocent the posterity of Cain would have been all guilty and corrupted as Adam's posterity now is For the same causes would have produced the same effects The consequence is clear in that Adam's sinning first can be no cause why we should not be guilty of the following sins of our neerer Parents which otherwise we
Prophets 3. He saith that the righteous blood shed by their Fathers shall come on them so that it appeareth that it is not only their own imitation of their Parents blood shed that comes on them but even that very blood that was shed by their Parents before they were born 4. He gives the reason from their natural participation whom ye slew and ye are the children of them that killed c. q. d. In as much as your Parents did it and you have your nature from them it 's just that all this be imputed to you and that you suffer as the doers of it your selves which yet you might have remedied by leaving their sinful ways but being your selves imitaters of them you shall bear both the sins which they and which your selves have committed Arg. 13. Psal 109. 9 10 12 13 14 15 16. Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg and let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places Neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children let his posterity be cut off and in the generation following let their name be blotted out Let the iniquity of bis Fathers be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out Let them be before the Lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth Here seems to be as plain evidence that we may be justly punished for the sins of our neerer Parents as any is in Scripture to prove the imputation of Adam's sin 1. David desireth a curse upon this sinners posterity even before they are born or before he knows what they will prove 2. And this is not because of Adam's sin though that also lay upon them but as he expresseth it ver 16. because he remembred not to shew mercy but persecuted the poâ— and needy man c. 3. Yea he desireth that God would remember the iniquity of his Father and not blot out the sin of his Mother which cannot be meant of any punishment that David would have God inflict on that Father or Mother He is not of a spirit so cruel and contrary to the Gospel as to desire that God would not forgive them that are dead long ago and either in joy or misery when he knew not whether they died penitently or impenitently If any say that he did know by the spirit of prophesie or special vision that they did die impenitently and are in hell 1. I desire them that affirm it to prove it 2. If so what need he desire that God would not forgive them or blot out their sin which he knew was now beyond possibility 3. But the next words in the Text shew that he speaks only of the sin of the dead Ancestors as it lieth on the posterity and not on themselves For as it was not the dead but the living that David prayeth against so he next saith Let them be before the Lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth So that it is a penalty on him that then was living and upon his posterity that David prays for even that his Parents sin may be remembred against him and his sin remembred against his children and not that any of them may be remembred against the dead who for ought he knew might some of them be pardoned in Heaven Obj. This might be an unlawful Prayer Answ Then would it not be recorded among the sacred forms which were dictated by the Holy Ghost without one word of check or reprehension Obj. It is but temporal judgments that David desires for the Parents sin Answ 1. It 's known that the judgments and blessings of God are mostly expressed in the old Testament as consisting in things temporal because it was not yet the fulness of time for Grace and the great fruits and concomitants of it to be revealed to the full Life and immortality are brought to light in a greater measure in the Gospel 2. I have proved in the beginning that If God may inflict temporal death on children for Parents sin then also may he inflict eternal as to the penalty of loss and so much of the pain of sense as the apprehension of that loss must needs infer He that depriveth man of life depriveth him of all the comforts of it and he that may do so may leave him his life without those comforts if he please Arg. 14. Psal 137. 9. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Here Babylon's children are to be dashed against the stones not only for Adam's but their neerer Parents sins As is plain in that those are given as the reason in the Psalm Arg. 15. Job 21. 19. God layeth up his iniquity for his children that is a punishment for his very iniquity So Job 27. 14. If his children be multiplied it is for the sword and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with bread Those that remain of him shall be buried in death So Job 17. 5. Even the eyes of his children shall fail So Job 5. 4. Arg. 16. The infants were to be part of the fasting mourning repenting sanctified Assembly Joel 2. 15 16. which was not to lament Adam's sin only but their later sins go the infants had some sort of participation in the guilt and danger of punishment Arg. 17. Nahum 3. 10. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets This mentioned as God's punishment for Parents sins The like is oft in the Lament So Hos 13. 16. Samaria shall become desolate for she hath rebelled against her God they shall fall by the sword their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child shall be rip'd up Arg. 18. Jer. 29. 32. Thus saith the Lord I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his seed because he hath taught rebellion against the Lord. Mark here it is called punishing his seed So of Jehoiakim Jer. 36. 31. I will punish him and his seed c. So Jer. 22. 28 30. Arg. 19. Isa 14. 20. The seed of evil doers shall never be renowned Isa 1. 4. A people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers Psal 21. 10. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth and their seed from among the children of men Psal 37. 28. The seed of the wicked shall be cut off So Psal 106. 27. And it 's oft made a reproach and a note of men liable to contempt as Isa 57. 3. Ye sons of the Sorceress the seed of the Adulterer and the Whore so oft Mal. 2. 15. may have somewhat to this sense And wherefore one that he might seek a godly seed whereof one reason may be when they contract no guilt of Parents Adultery I might here also draw an argument not contemptible from the interest of the seed of the faithful in the benefits of free Grace But because I have been so long I will add but one more and in that sum up
accidental benefits to nature as for conveying a nature deprived of them In case of privation the Parents cannot convey what they have not But though they had it yet it followeth not that they should convey it if it were a supervenient accident separable from nature as for example any right to a reward that Adam might be supposed to attain by his obedience this might be proper to himself 3. He addeth at least all the sins which Adam committed while we were in his loins must be imputed to us Answ I grant it and say that so they are yet with the fore-mentioned difference that the first sin depriving us of all title to all God's benefits the second could deprive us of no more and so could add no more guilt terminative but only fundamentaliter 4. He adds so should all the sins of our intermediate Parents seeing when they committed them we were as much in them as in Adam Answ I grant all with the last mentioned difference Let those that go on other grounds answer the Objector as well as they can 5. He adds yea the death of Adam should be so imputed to us for if he sinned as the Head of mankind why should he not also be punished in the same respect If we were not bound to obey that prohibition but in his person surely neither to be punished for the commination belongs no otherwise to us than the prohibition Answ But withal consider that though God might have satisfied his justice with destroying Adam and so putting an end to humane race yet 1. He was no way bound to do this He that a little before bid man encrease and multiply might let him enjoy his forfeited life that was no injustice 2. Yea when God had so lately made so glorious a structure for the demonstration and communication of his goodness c. it may seem in wisdom much fitter for him to let the sinning creature live while he provideth propoundeth and applyeth a remedy than presently to destroy the works that he had made though man deserved it 3. I pray you mark then the grounds that I go on I say not that we personally were then guilty in Adam but that we draw a guilt with our natures from Adam God having in just and merciful wisdom resolved that we shall survive and so humane nature be propagated it can be no other but a guilty nature that is so propagated which God is not bound to hinder but rather in wisdom not to hinder it if that might be called an obligation 6. It is further objected Moreover how did we sin in Adam actually who were never actually in him Answ 1. I say not that we then sinned in Adam properly no more than that we did exist in Adam For as I know that existere est esse extra causas so I know that the act of sin and the relation of guilt are accidents that must have an existent subject if they exist and therefore we cannot be sinners and guilty before we are But I say that when we first are we have a nature received from a guilty progenitor and therefore a guilty nature because he cannot convey to us the right to felicity which he lost 2. We were seminally in Adam and so sinned in him though I know as to personal actual existence this is but terminus diminuens yet is it more than meerly potential 7. It 's objected How could that act be voluntary as to us which was long past before that we had any will Answ As we did not personally exist in Adam so did we not will that act in Adam But yet when we received a will from Adam it was quaedam natura and guilty of what his will was guilty though not by the guilt of actual commission yet of derivation and participation And thus it is reputatively voluntary 8. It 's next replied to some of the common reasons on our part There was indeed humane nature in Adam but singular and divided from this of ours And if the first act of sin were an act of nature why not also the first act of generation yet no man will say that in Adam we did beget Cain or Seth. Answ 1. This makes nothing against me who say not that we then sinned in Adam properly but that we received a guilty nature from Adam which then began to be a sinful or guilty nature or person when it began to be a nature or person and before that was but a guilty seed 2. Faults and punishments being quid moral vel civile a political thing may be moraliter reputative transferred and therefore as a man may suffer as a membe◠〈◊〉 a sinful Society though personally innocent so might we as branches of mankind But generation being quid naturale there is no such ground for such an imputation or reputative translation of it So that the case is not alike 9. It follows And if Adam did deserve to himself a punishment equal to that his sin that is as great as God had threatned shall we think that Justice will require other punishments from innumerable other men for that same sin Answ Adam did deserve a punishment as great as his personal nature was capable of and also the same to all that should come from his loins If God had destroyed him before he had any posterity it would indeed have prevented the propagation of guilt by preventing the being of a capable subject but yet there would have been in Adam's sin a desert of such a propagated guilt or a reason for it on supposition that there were a nature from him propagated I deny therefore the Antecedent on supposition that God would let the course of humane generation go on according to the newly established Law of nature It was not only to his own person that Adam deserved this punishment Or thus I may deny the Consequence Though Adam deserved punishment only to his person yet it being to his whole person and our persons being then seminally in his and so after existing from his it follows that what he deserved to his person is propagated to those to whom that person propagates a being seeing it is of himself and out of himself that we proceed and not by a meer efficient causality as in creation or fabrication but he affordeth us our matter 10. It 's further objected Either that sin had but one adequate guilt which was to be divided among all Adam's posterity or as many guilts as men If the first then it is but a little of that sin that is imputed or of the punishment that is due to each of us singularly If the later then one sin should not have one guilt nor one adequate punishment but innumerable Answ The fundamentum is sin and that is one so the guilt is one fundamentaliter subjective primario but more than one fundamentaliter subjective per derivationem on supposition that according to the course of nature the one first guilty subject procreate
seeing it was pardoned to Noah from whom all the World proceedeth and how could Noah convey the guilt which he had not Answ This objection was before answered in part Remember still that the meer merit of punishment simply considered is not taken away by pardon nor the meer reatus facti vel culpe It remaineth true to all eternity that such a man did commit such a sin and that that sin deserved death but not that he is obliged to death for it Remember also that this is communicated to posterity with their nature And that it is a voluntary act of God that remitteth the deserved punishment and pardoneth the sin and therefore it can extend no further than he please As also that this meer merit doth produce a proper guilt on every soul that hath it which makes it capable of pardon though to infants that are pardoned the guilt and the pardon are in the same moment of time yet in order of nature the guilt goes first These things premised I further answer that there are two opinions of Divines about pardon of infants Some think-that only the elect are pardoned and some as Davenant Ward Amyraldus c. think that all the infants of Believers or that are baptized rightly are pardoned According to the principles of the former it must be said that when God pardoned Noah or any godly Parent and his elect seed that pardon remaineth firm for ever but a pardon it is to the seed as well as to the Parent and therefore supposeth guilt which is by a necessary resultancy from the natural desert till Grace destroy it But as for that seed as Cham. e. g. which was not elect God pardoned Noah's original sin but limitedly intending that it should not extend to the non-elect seed but that they should have a guilt on their souls from that natural merit as if God had never pardoned the progenitors For the desert and imputability adhereth to nature but the remission will go no further than free Grace extendeth it According to the principles of the later it must be said that God pardoned to Noah and every godly Parent the sin of Adam and all other and to his infants while infants but with this limitation that if they themselves at years of discretion believed not they should not continue pardoned but perish either by the return of the sin before so pardoned as some think or only for the super-added sin as others think In a word every Parent begetteth a Son of Adam and of himself a sinner and thereby begets a nature that hath in it self compared with God's Law the fundamentum reatus and this he doth never the less for being pardoned himself Unless his posterity be pardoned with himself they will remain guilty for the relaxation of the commination being but to his own person makes only a change on himself The disease is natural and the cure is accidental and therefore though he be cured yet will he convey the disease to posterity To explain this by the like Suppose that by a standing Law of the Land all the posterity of any Traytor are to be disinherited dishonoured and banished It pleaseth the Soveraign not to destroy this Law but to dispense with it as he shall see special reasons Whereupon he pardoneth some one of a traytorous line with this limitation either that this pardon shall be but to his own person only or at most but to his seed immediate till they forfeit the benefit by ungrateful rejection In this case all his posterity would be nevertheless born guilty of the foresaid punishment only that guilt would be taken off according to the terms in the Law and no further For the Law is still in force and universal and the children are naturally the posterity of a Traytor whether in one degree or many and the pardon is but a singular and supra-legal act and limited as is expressed and is purposed for the removal of a guilt from the particular persons and not for the preventing it in any one of them or if the pardon be universal-conditional all is one What I have said about Adam's sin will more easily answer the like objection as to neerer Parents sins Obj. 3. If we are so guilty of our Parents sins then Christ's satisfaction and God's pardon of sin is imperfect for he pardoneth them upon Christ's satisfaction to every believing Parent and if after this they must be punished again on their posterity then were they not perfectly pardoned at the first Answ The perfection of pardon and Christ's satisfaction must be discerned by considering them in their own kind and in their perfect sufficiency to those ends whereto God intendeth them and not according to mistaking conceits of men Pardon is not simply and absolutely perfect in this life Manosseh's sins must be punished when he is dead on his posterity But it hath no Imimperfection dishonourable to God or to Christ's satisfaction 2. It is not the same numerical guilt that is pardoned to the Father and not pardoned to the Son or remaineth on him From one sin there ariseth one single guilt to the first sinner and that multiplyeth upon the multiplication of persons from his loins and every person hath a several guilt though from the same root 3. Note also that this objection makes as much against our guilt of Adam's sin as of our neerer Parents and more for they may say that sin hath been pardoned to many of our progenitors between Adam and us But it holds not against either Obj. 4. God would not drown Noah with the World nor destroy Lot with Sodom and Abraham saith Let it be far from the Judge of all the earth to destroy the righteous with the wicked Answ 1. God was not then dealing with the World or with Sodom for such sins as Noah or Lot were guilty of So that though he might have found sin in them deserving his wrath yet when he comes to execute an extraordinary judgment for an extraordinary sin he will not deal with those as with such extraordinary or great or impenitent sinners who were not such 2. It is justice Evangelical therefore or on terms of Grace and not pure legal Justice which Abraham appeals to for the rescue of Lot It 's true it is a personal righteousness of Lot which he pleadeth with God for his deliverance from judgment even with the Judge of all the earth as a necessary work of his justice which those may note that will have no righteousness inherent in our selves pleaded with God much less with Justice for freedom from his wrath But it is but a righteousness consisting in a freedom from that impenitency and wickedness which God came to revenge and not in perfect obedience This therefore shews not what God might do in strict justice but what he will do in that justice which is tempered with and prevailed over as it were by mercy 3. The infants of the old World and Sodom perish'd with them
that there is the same natural and meritorious force in Cain's sin to turn his nature further from God as was in Adam's to turn it so far away Or if man were at the worst yet his following sins have the same power to fix him in that misery as his first had to bring him into it For they also are a wilful turning from God to the creature as well as the first Arg. 2. It is past all doubt that the sinners own personal nature is made worse by his own actual sin experience proves it too fully Scripture saith that they that have been accustomed to do evil can no more learn to do well than a Blackmoor can change his skin or a Leopard his spots And there is no reason that I know of that can be given why a more corrupt Parent should not beget a child more corrupt and deliver him the sinful improvement of his pravity as well as that all sinful depraved Parents should beget depraved children And though this controversy be mixed with the great difficulties about the propagation of the soul and the matter of its corruption yet which way soever those be determined it makes not against the thing that I assert If the soul be ex traduce and so corrupted then the case is most easy If man beget the sensitive soul corrupted and God do then promove that to the excellency of being a rational soul as some think the material species of the phantasy is raised by the active intellect to be the intelligible immaterial species still there is the same reason why the more corrupt Parent should propagate a soul more corrupt as that all should propagate a corrupt one If the soul be depraved either by a taint from the body or by a willing accommodation of it self to the body through the force of the natural desire of union de quo vide Placaeum ubi supra as water to the shape of the vessel that it is put into still the reason holds the same for the degree of corruption as for the thing it self That God by way of penalty should create the soul sinful immediately seems plainly to make him the Author of sin But if it were so yet there is the same reason of demerit to provoke him to create the soul of Cain's son yet more sinful as there is in Adam's to provoke him to create it sinful at all Arg. 3. Besides experience assureth us that all children bring not an equal degree of pravity into the World if we may judge by their first exercise of reason or use of passions But if there were no difference made since it should seem that all should be corrupted alike further than God cureth any and so maketh a difference We see also that many of the children of the most vicious people are more vicious than the ordinary sort of men are We see also that some mens bodies being distempered by their vices they propagate those bodily distempers to their posterity which we evidently perceive do make a great alteration on the soul from whence we see some persons very sottish and silly yea some ideots and some extreme talkative some extreme passionate some lustful some malicious some gluttonous some drunkards and this above the corrupt inclination which appeareth in the ordinary sort of men and plainly sed by the temper of the body Obj. 1. If our corruption were increased by the sins of immediate Parents then the World would grow worse and worse and we should have been Devils long before this age Answ 1. Most Divines say that the first sin would have done all this if God in mercy had not prevented or remedied it 2. God still resolveth to keep the World in order under his Government and therefore restraineth corruption and will not suffer it to grow as according to its nature it would 3. This is one of the common benefits that the World receiveth by the grace of the Redeemer that they grow not as bad as else they would 4. For the sake of the Church God will restrain them Obj. 2. We see many of the worst men have good children Answ No mans corruptions do put his children into a remediless condition and therefore God may sanctifie whom and when he pleaseth So may he do also by the Parents themselves for all their sins and yet those sins do make them worse Obj. 3. Then you may say that Grace is propagated by generation from our immediate Parents as well as sin and yet experience telleth us the contrary Answ 1. This makes as much against the propagation of original corruption from Adam as from our neerer Parents If it were of any force it would be against both 2. There is so great a difference between grace and sin that quite alters the case For 1. Grace is something extrinsecally adventitious and now as to the cause of it and manner of working it supernatural but so is not sin 2. Grace is an adventitious perfecting quality Sin is a defect as it is in the rational faculties But defects are more easily propagated than adventitious qualities for one requireth nothing thereto but a defective nature for nothing can convey to another that which it hath not it self but the other requireth more than nature to its propagation No acquired knowledge or skill in Languages Sciences Arts or Manufactures are propagated to posterity by nature but the ignorance of these is natural 3. But above all it 's considerable that original sin so far as it containeth a positive inclination seems to be radically in the inordination of the sensitive appetite raging against the rule of reason though the rational faculty be corrupted too and gives up it self to the slavery of the sensitive yet the sensitive seems to be the root Now it is evident that nature doth much in propagation of the sensitive or else man should do less in generation than a beast But Grace is radically subjected in the rational faculties though by participation also it reach the sensitive and here nature doth less in propagation We see by experience that a natural gentleness and calmness of the passions and such other lower common virtues as are subjected in the sensitive part are born with some men and from the temperament of the body one man is more mild patient temperate than another but it is not so with the intellectual Perfections nor Christian Graces Faith Hope or Charity I shall now proceed to prove so much of the affirmative as I have here owned more than is now held viz. That there ariseth to children from the sins of their neerest Parents such an imperfect guilt so called by analogie of attribution as that God may in vindictive justice inflict on them for the same the penalty so called by the same analogy both of temporal death and of eternal at least as to the penalty of loss supposing that it be not pardoned through Christ And this I prove by these following Arguments Arg. 1. If we are guilty of