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
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
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 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
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
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 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