Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	soul_n	word_n	10,514	5	4.4606	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63754	Deus justificatus. Two discourses of original sin contained in two letters to persons of honour, wherein the question is rightly stated, several objections answered, and the truth further cleared and proved by many arguments newly added or explain'd. By Jer. Taylor D.D.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Deus justificatus, or, A vindication of the glory of the divine attributes in the question of original sin.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Answer to a letter written by the R.R. the Ld Bp of Rochester.	1656 (1656)	Wing T311A; ESTC R220790	75,112	280

he was permitted to the power of his enemy that betray'd him and put under the power of his body whose appetites would govern him and when they would grow irregular could not be mastered by any thing that was about him or born with him so that his case was miserable and naked and his state of things was imperfect and would be disordered But now Madam things being thus bad are made worse by the superinduced Doctrines of men which when I have represented to your Ladiship and told upon what accounts I reprove them your Honour will finde that I have reason There are one sort of Calvins Scholars whom we for distinctions sake call Supralapsarians who are so fierce in their sentences of predestination and reprobation that they say God look'd upon mankinde onely as his Creation and his slaves over whom he having absolute power was very gracious that he was pleased to take some few and save them absolutely and to the other greater part he did no wrong though he was pleased to damn them eternally onely because he pleased for they were his own and Qui jure suo utitur nemini facit injuriam saies the law of reason every one may do what he please with his own But this bloody and horrible opinion is held but by a few as tending directly to the dishonour of God charging on Him alone that He is the cause of mens sins on Earth and of mens eternal torments in Hell it makes God to be powerfull but his power not to be good it makes him more cruel to men then good men can be to Dogs and sheep it makes him give the final sentence of Hell without any pretence or colour of justice it represents him to be that which all the World must naturally fear and naturally hate as being a God delighting in the death of innocents for so they are when he resolves to damn them and then most tyrannically cruel and unreasonable for it saies that to make a postnate pretence of justice it decrees that men inevitably shall sin that they may inevitably but justly be damned like the Roman Lictors who because they could not put to death Sejanus daughters as being Virgins defloured them after sentence that by that barbarity they might be capable of the utmost Cruelty it makes God to be all that thing that can be hated for it makes him neither to be good nor just nor reasonable but a mighty enemy to the biggest part of mankinde it makes him to hate what himself hath made and to punish that in another which in himself he decreed should not be avoided it charges the wisdom of God with folly as having no means to glorifie his justice but by doing unjustly by bringing in that which himself hates that he might do what himself loves doing as Tiberius did to Brutus and Nero the Sons of Germanicus Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia et concitati perderentur provoking them to raise that he might punish their reproachings This opinion reproaches the words and the Spirit of Scripture it charges God with Hypocrisy and want of Mercy making him a Father of Cruelties not of Mercie and is a perfect overthrow of all Religion and all Lawes and all Goverment it destroyes the very being and nature of all Election thrusting a man down to the lowest form of beasts and birds to whom a Spontaneity of doing certain actions is given by God but it is in them so naturall that it is unavoidable Now concerning this horrid opinion I for my part shall say nothing but this that he that sayes there was no such man as Alexander would tell a horrible lie and be injurious to all story and to the memory and fame of that great Prince but he that should say It is true there was such a man as Alexander but he was a Tyrant and a Blood-sucker cruel and injurious false and dissembling an enemy of mankind and for all the reasons of the world to be hated and reproached would certainly dishonour Alexander more and be his greatest enemy So I think in this That the Atheists who deny there is a God do not so impiously against God as they that charge him with foul appellatives or maintain such sentences which if they were true God could not be true But these men Madam have nothing to do in the Question of Originall Sin save onely that they say that God did decree that Adam should fall and all the sins that he sinn'd and all the world after him are no effects of choice but of predestination that is they were the actions of God rather then man But because these men even to their brethren seem to speak evil things of God therefore the more wary and temperat of the Calvinists bring down the order of reprobation lower affirming that God looked upon all mankind in Adam as fallen into his displeasure hated by God truly guilty of his sin liable to Eternal damnation and they being all equally condemned he was pleased to separate some the smaller number far and irresistibly bring them to Heaven but the far greater number he passed over leaving them to be damned for the sin of Adam and so they think they salve Gods Justice and this was the designe and device of the Synod of Dort Now to bring this to passe they teach concerning Original sin 1. That by this sin our first Parents fell from their Original righteousnesse and communion with God and so became dead in sinne and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body 2. That whatsoever death was due to our first Parents for this sin they being the root of all mankinde and the guilt of this sin being imputed the same is conveied to all their posterity by ordinary generation 3. That by this Original corruption we are utterly indisposed disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evill and that from hence proceed all actual trangressions 4. This corruption of nature remaines in the regenerate and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified yet both it self and all the motions thereof are trulie and properly sin 5. Original sin being a transgression of the righteous Law of God and contrary thereunto doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the Law and so made subject to death with all miseries spiritual temporall and eternal These are the sayings of the late Assembly at Westminster Against this heap of errors and dangerous propositions I have made my former discoursings and statings of the Question of Original sin These are the Doctrines of the Presbyterian but as unlike truth as his assemblies are to our Church for concerning him I may say Nemo tam propè proculque nobis He is the likest and the unlikest to a Son of our Church in the world he is neerest to us and furthest from us and to all the world abroad

account suspect the usuall discourses of the effects and Oeconomy of Originall sinne 8. For where will they reckon the beginning of Predestination will they reckon it in Adam after the fall or in Christ immediately promised If in Adam then they return to the Presbyterian way and run upon all the rocks before reckoned enough to break all the World in Pieces If in Christ they reckon it and so they do then thus I argue If we are all reckoned in Christ before we were borne then how can we be reckoned in Adam when we are born I speak as to the matter of Predestination to salvation or damnation For as for the intermedial temporal evills and dangers spirituall and sad infirmities they are our nature and might with Justice have been all the portion God had given to Adam and therefore may be so to us and consequently not at all to be reckoned in this inquiry But certainly as to the maine 9. If God lookes upon us all in Christ then by him we are rescued from Adam so much is done for us before we were born For if this is not to be reckoned till after we were borne then Adam's sin prevailed really in some periods and to some effects for which God in Christ had provided no remedie for it gave no remedie to children till after they were born but irremediably they were born children of wrath For if a remedy were given to children before they were born then they are born in Christ not in Adam but if this remedy was not given to children before they were born then it followes that we were not at first looked upon in Christ but in Adam and consequently he was caput praedestinationis the head of predestination or else there were two the one before we were born the other after So that haeret lethalis arundo The arrow sticks fast and it cannot be pulled out unlesse by other instruments then are commonly in fashion However it be yet me thinks this a very good probable argument As Adam sinned before any childe was born so was Christ promised before and that our Redeemer shall not have more force upon children that they should be born beloved and quitted from wrath then Adam our Progenitor shall have to cause that we be born hated and in a damnable condition wants so many degrees of probability that it seems to dishonour the mercy of God and the reputation of his goodesse and the power of his redemption For this serves as an Antidote and Antinomy of their great objection pretended by these learned persons for whereas they say they the rather affirm this because it is an honour to the redemption which our Saviour wrought for us that it rescued us from the sentence of damnation which we had incurred To this I say that the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak propositions and neither can the reputation and honour of the Divine goodnesse borrow aids and artificial supports from the dishonour of his Justice and it is no reputation to a Physitian to say he hath cured us of an evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that the son may have the Honour to have cured us I understand not that He that makes a necessity that he may finde a remedie is like the Roman whom Cato found fault withal he would commit a fault that he might begge a pardon he had rather write bad Greek that he might make an apologie then write good latine and need none But however Christ hath done enough for us even all that we did need and since it is all the reason in the World we should pay him all honour we may remember that it is a greater favour to us that by the benefit of our Blessed Saviour who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world we were reckoned in Christ and born in the accounts of the Divine favour I say it is a greater favour that we were born under the redemption of Christ then under the sentence and damnation of Adam and to prevent an evil is a greater favour then to cure it so that if to do honour to Gods goodnesse and to the graces of our Redeemer we will suppose a need we may do him more honour to suppose that the promised seed of the woman did do us as early a good as the sin of Adam could do us mischief and therefore that in Christ we are born quitted from any such supposed sentence and not that we bring it upon our shoulders into the World with us But this thing relies onely upon their suppositions For if we will speak of what is really true and plainly revealed From all the sins of all mankinde Christ came to redeem us He came to give us a supernatural birth to tell us all his Fathers will to reveal to us those glorious promises upon the expectation of which we might be enabled to do every thing that is required He came to bring us grace and life and spirit to strengthen us against all the powers of Hell and Earth to sanctifie our afflictions which from Adam by Natural generation descended on us to take cut the sting of death to make it an entrance to immortal life to assure us of resurrection to intercede for us and to be an advocate for us when we by infirmity commit sin to pardon us when we repent Nothing of which could be derived to us from Adam by our natural generation Mankinde now taking in his whole constitution and designe is like the Birds of Paradice which travellers tell us of in the Molucco Islands born without legs but by a celestial power they have a recompence made to them for that defect and they alwayes hover in the air and feed on the dew of heaven so are we birds of Paradice but cast out from thence and born without legs without strength to walk in the laws of God or to go to heaven but by a power from above we are adopted in our new birth to a celestial conversation we feed on the dew of heaven the just does ●live ●oy faith and breaths in this new life by the spirit of God For from the first Adam nothing descended to us but an infirm body and a naked soul evil example and a body of death ignorance and passion hard labor and a cursed field a captive soul and an imprisoned body that is a soul naturally apt to comply with the appetites of the body and its desires whether reasonable or excessive and though these things were not direct sins to us in their natural abode and first principle yet there are proper inherent miseries and principles of sin to us in their emanation But from this state Christ came to redeem us all by his grace and by his spirit by his life and by his death by his Doctrine and by his Sacraments by his promises and by his

who are of the other side doe and will disavow most of these consequences and so doe all the World all the evils which their adversaries say do follow from their opinions but yet all the World of men that perceive such evills to follow from a proposition think themselves bound to stop the progression of such opinions from whence they beleeve such evils may arise If the Church of Rome did believe that all those horrid things were chargable upon Transubstantiation and upon worshipping of Images which we charge upon the Doctrines I doe not doubt but they would as much disowne the Proposition as now they doe the consequents and yet I doe as little doubt but that we do well to disown the first because we espy the latter and though the Man be not yet the doctrines are highly chargable with the evils that follow it may be the men espy them not yet from the doctrines they do certainly follow and there are not it the World many men who owne that is evil in the pretence but many doe such as are dangerous in the effect and this doctrine which I have reproved I take to be one of them Object 4. But if Originall sinne be not a sinne properly why are children baptized and what benefit comes to them by baptisme I Answer as much as they need and are capable of and it may as well be asked Why were all the sons of Abraham circumcised when in that Covenant there was no remission of sins at all for little things and legal impurities and irregularities there were but there being no sacrifice there but of beasts whose blood could not take away sinne it is certaine and plainly taught us in Scripture that no Rite of Moses was expiatory of sinnes But secondly This Objection can presse nothing at all for why was Christ baptized who knew no sinne But yet so it behoved him to fulfill all Righteousnesse 3. Baptisme is called regeneration or the new birth and therefore since in Adam Children are borne onely to a naturall life and a Naturall death and by this they can never arrive at Heaven therefore Infants are baptized because untill they be borne anew they can never have title to the Promises of Jesus Christ or be heirs of heaven and coheir's of Jesus 4. By Baptisme Children are made partakers of the holy Ghost and of the grace of God which I desire to be observed in opposition to the Pelagian Heresy who did suppose Nature to be so perfect that the Grace of God was not necessary and that by Nature alone they could go to heaven which because I affirm to be impossible and that Baptisme is therfore necessary because nature is insufficient and Baptisme is the great chanel of grace there ought to be no envious and ignorant load laid upon my Doctrine as if it complied with the Pelagian against which it is so essentially and so mainly opposed in the main difference of his Doctrine 5. Children are therefore Baptized because if they live they will sinne and though their sins are not pardoned before hand yet in Baptisme they are admitted to that state of favour that they are within the Covenant of repentance and Pardon and this is expresly the Doctrine of St. Austin lib. 1. de nupt concup cap. 26. cap. 33. tract 124. in Johan But of this I have already given larger accounts in my Discourse of Baptisme part 2 p. 194. in the great Exemplar 6. Children are baptized for the Pardon even of Originall sin this may be affirmed truly but yet improperly for so far as it is imputed so farr also it is remissible for the evill that is done by Adam is also taken away in Christ and it is imputed to us to very evill purposes as I have already explicated but as it was among the Jewes who believed then the sinne to be taken away when the evill of punishment is taken off so is Originall sinne taken away in Baptisme for though the Material part of the evill is not taken away yet the curse in all the sons of God is turn'd into a blessing and is made an occasion of reward or an entrance to it Now in all this I affirme all that is true and all that is probable for in the same sense as Originall staine is a sinne so does Baptisme bring the Pardon It is a sinne metonymically that is because it is the effect of one sinne and the cause of many and just so in baptisme it is taken away that it is now the matter of a grace and the opportunity of glory and upon these Accounts the Church Baptizes all her Children Object 5. But to deny Originall sinne to be a sinne properly and inherently is expressly against the words of S. Paul in the 5. Chapter to the Romanes If it bee I have done but that it is not I have these things to say 1. If the words be capable of any interpretation and can be permitted to signifie otherwise then is vulgarly pretended I suppose my self to have given reasons sufficient why they ought to be For any interpretation that does violence to right Reason to Religion to Holinesse of life and the Divine Attributes of God is therefore to be rejected and another chosen For in all Scriptures all good and all wise men doe it 2. The words in question sin and sinner and condemnation are frequently used in Scripture in the lesser sense and sin is taken for the punishment of sin and sin is taken for him who bore the evil of the sinne and sin is taken for legal impurity and for him who could not be guilty even for Christ himself as I have proved already and in the like manner sinners is used by the rule of Conjugates and denominatives but it is so also in the case of Bathsheba the Mother of Solomon 3. For the word condemnation it is by the Apostle himself limited to signifie his temporal death for when the Apostle sayes Death passed upon all men in as much as all men have sinned he must mean temporal death for eternal death did not passe upon all men and if he means eternal death he must not mean that it came for Adams sin but in as much as all men have sinned that is upon all those upon whom eternal death did come it came because they also have sinned 4. The Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent and if imputed onely to such purposes as he here speaks of viz. to temporal death then it is neither a sin properly nor yet imputable to Eternal death so far as is or can be inplyed by the Apostles words 5. The Apostles sayes by the disobedience of one many were made sinners so that it appears that we in this have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally and inherently for though efficiently it was his and effectively ours as to certain purposes of imputation yet it could not be a sin to

us formally because it was Vnius inobedientia the disobedience of one man therefore in no sense could it be properly ours 6. Whensoever another mans sin is imputed to his relative therefore because it is anothers and imputed it can go no further but to effect certain evils to afflict the relative but to punish the cause not formally to denominate the descendant or relative to be a sinner for it is as much a contradiction to say that I am formally by him a sinner as that I did really do his action Now to impute in Scripture it signifies to reckon as if he had done it Not to impute is to treate him so as if he had not done it So far then as the imputation is so far we are reckoned as sinners but Adams sin being by the Apostle signified to be imputed but to the condemnation or sentence to a temporal death so far we are sinners in him that is so as that for his sake death was brought upon us And indeed the word imputare to impute does never signifie more nor alwayes so much Imputare verò frequenter ad significationem exprobrantis accedit sed citra reprehensionem sayes Laurentius valla It is like an exprobation but short of a reproof so Quintilian Imput as nobis propitios ventos secundum mare ac civitatis opulentae liberalitatem Thou doest impute that is upbraid to us our prosperous voyages and a calm Sea and the liberality of a rich City Imputare signifies oftentimes the same that computare to reckon or account Nam haec in quartâ non imputantur say the Lawyers they are not imputed that is they are not computed or reckoned Thus Adams sin is imputed to us that is it is put into our reckoning when we are sick and die we pay our Symbols the portion of evil that is laid upon us and what Marcus said I may say in this case with a little variety legata in haereditate sive legatum datum sit haeredi sive percipere sive deducere vel retinere passus est ei imputantur the the legacy whether it be given or left to the heire whether he may take it or keep it is still imputed to him that is it is within his reckoning But no reason no Scripture no Religion does inforce and no divine Attribute does permit that we should say that God did so impute Adams sin to his posterity that he di really esteem them to be guilty of Adams sin equally culpable equally hateful For if in this sense it be true that in him we sinned then we sinn'd as he did that is with the same malice in the same action and then we are as much guilty as he but if we have sinned lesse then we did not sin in him for to sinne in him could not by him be lessen'd to us for what we did in him we did by him and therefore as much as he did but if God imputed this sin lesse to us then to him then this imputation supposes it onely to be a collateral and indirect account to such purposes as he pleased of which purposes we judge by the analogy of faith by the words of Scripture by the proportion and notices of the Divine Attributes 7. There is nothing in the designe or purpose of the Apostle that can or ought to infer any other thing for his purpose is to signifie that by mans sin death entred into the world which the son of Sirach Ecclus. 25. 33. expresses thus à muliere factum est initium peccati inde est quod morimur from the woman is the beginning of sinne and from her it is that we all die and again Ecclus. 1. 24. by the envie of the Devil death came into the world this evil being Universal Christ came to the world and became our head to other purposes even to redeem us from death which he hath begun and will finish and to become to us our Parent in a new birth the Author of a spiritual life and this benefit is of far more efficacy by Christ then the evil could be by Adam and as by Adam we are made sinners so by Christ we are made righteous not just so but so and more and therefore as our being made sinners signifies that by him we die so being by Christ made righteous must at least signifie that by him we live and this is so evident to them who read Saint Pauls words Rom. 5. from verse 12. to verse 19. inclusively that I wonder any man should make a farther question concerning them especially since Erasmus and Grotius who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediat successors hath brought forth have so understood and rendred it But Madam that your Honour may read the words and their sense together and see that without violence they signifie what I have said and no more I have here subjoyned a paraphrase of them in which if I use any violence I can very easily be reproved As by the disobedience of Adam sin had it's beginning and by sin death that is the sentence and preparations the solennities addresses of death sicknesse calamity diminution of strengths Old age misfortunes and all the affections of Mortality for the destroying of our temporall life and so this mortality and condition or state of death pass'd actually upon all mankind for Adam being thrown out of paradise and forc'd to live with his Children where they had no trees of Life as he had in Paradise was remanded to his mortall naturall state and therefore death passed upon them mortally seized on all for that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams sinne passed upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all But yet death descended also upon Adams Posterity for their own sins for since all did sinne all should die And marvell not that Death did presently descend on all mankind even before a Law was given them with an appendant penalty viz. With the expresse intermination of death For they did do actions unnaturall and vile enough but yet these things which afterwards upon the publication of the Law were imputed to them upon their personall account even unto death were not yet so imputed For Nature alone gives Rules but does not directly bind to penalties But death came upon them before the Law for Adams sin for with him God being angry was pleased to curse him also in his Posterity and leave them also in their meere naturall condition to which yet they dispos'd themselves and had deserved but too much by committing evill things to which things although before the law death was not threatned yet for the anger which God had against mankind he left that death which he threatned to Adam expresly by implication to fall upon the Posteritie And therefore it was that death reigned from Adam to

they die without Baptism But if it be a horrible affirmative to say that the poor babes shall be made Devils or enter into their portion if they want that ceremony which is the only gate the only way of salvation that stands open then the word Damnation in the 9. Article must mean something less then what we usually understand by it or else the Article must be salved by expounding some other word to an allay and lessening of the horrible sentence and particularly the word Deserves of which I shall afterwards give account Both these waies I follow The first is the way of the Schoolmen For they suppose the state of unbaptized Infants to be a poena damni and they are confident enough to say that this may be well suppos'd without inferring their suffering the pains of hell But this sentence of theirs I admit and explicate with some little difference of expression For so far I admit this pain of loss or rather a deficiency from going to Heaven to be the consequence of Adam's sin that by it we being left in meris Naturalibus could never by these strengths alone have gone to Heaven Now whereas your Lordship in behalf of those whom you suppose may be captious is pleas'd to argue That as loss of sight or eyes infers a state of darkness or blindness so the losse of Heaven infers Hell and if Infants go not to heaven in that state whither can they go but to hell and that 's Damnation in the greatest sense I grant it that if in the event of things they do not go to Heaven as things are now ordered it is but too likely that they go to Hell but I adde that as all darkness does not infer horror and distraction of minde or fearful apparitions and phantasms so neither does all Hell or states in Hell infer all those torments which the Schoolmen signifie by a poena sensus for I speak now in pursuance of their way So that there is no necessity of a third place but it concludes only that in the state of separation from Gods presence there is a great variety of degrees and kinds of evil and every one is not the extreme and yet by the way let me observe that Gregory Nazianzen and Nicetas taught that there is a third place for Infants and Heathens and Irenaeus affirm'd that the evils of Hell were not eternal to all but to the Devils only and the greater criminals But neither they nor we nor any man else can tell whether Hell be a place or no. It is a state of evil but whether all the damned be in one or in twenty places we cannot tell But I have no need to make use of any of this For when I affirm that Infants being by Adam reduc'd and left to their meer natural state fall short of Heaven I do not say they cannot go to Heaven at all but they cannot go thither by their naturall powers they cannot without a new grace and favour go to heaven But then it cannot presently be inferred that therefore they go to hell but this ought to be infer'd which indeed was the real consequent of it therefore it is necessary that Gods Grace should supply this defect if God intends Heaven to them at all and because Nature cannot God sent a Saviour by whom it was effected But if it be asked what if this grace had not come and that it be said that without Gods grace they must have gone to Hell because without it they could not go to Heaven I answer That we know how it is now that God in his goodness hath made provisions for them but if he had not made such provisions what would have been we know not any more then we know what would have followed if Adam had not sinned where he should have liv'd and how long and in what circumstances the posterity should have been provided for in all their possible contingencies But yet this I know that it followes not that if without this Grace we could not have gone to Heaven that therefore we must have gone to Hel. For although the first was ordinarily impossible yet the second was absolutely unjust and against Gods goodness and therefore more impossible But because the first could not be done by nature God was pleased to promise and to give his grace that he might bring us to that state whither he had design'd us that is to a supernatural felicity If Adam had not fallen yet Heaven had not been a natural consequent of his obedience but a Gracious it had been a gift still and of Adam though he had persisted in innocence it is true to say that without Gods Grace that is by the meer force of Nature he could never have arriv'd to a Supernatural state that is to the joyes of Heaven and yet it does not follow that if he had remain'd in Innocence he must have gone to Hell Just so it is in Infants Hell was not made for man but for Devils and therefore it must be something besides meer Nature that can bear any man thither meer Nature goes neither to Heaven nor Hell So that when I say Infants naturally cannot go to Heaven and that this is a punishment of Adam's sin he being for it punished with a loss of his gracious condition and devolv'd to the state of Nature and we by him left so my meaning is that this Damnation which is of our Nature is but negative that is as a consequent of our Patriarchs sin our Nature is left imperfect and deficient in order to a supernatural end which the Schoolmen call a poena damni but improperly they indeed think it may be a real event and final condition of persons as well as things but I affirm it was an evil effect of Adam's sin but in the event of things it became to the persons the way to a new grace and hath no other event as to Heaven and Hell directly and immediately In the same sense and to the same purpose I understand the word Damnation in the 9. Article But the word Damnation may very well truly and sufficiently signifie all the purposes of the Article if it be taken only for the effect of that sentence which was inflicted upon Adam and descended on his posterity that is for condemnation to Death and the evils of mortality So the word is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word but that it did particularly signifie temporal death and evils appears by the instances of probation in the next words For for this cause some are weak amongst you some are sick and some are fallen asleep This also in the Article Original Sin deserves damnation that is it justly brought in the angry sentence of God upon Man it brought him to death and deserv'd it it brought it upon us and deserv'd it too I do not say that we

been a personal but a natural evil I am sure so the Article of our Church affirms it is the fault and corruption of our Nature And so S. Bonaventure affirms in the wo●ds cited by your Lordship in your Letter Sicui peccatum actuale tribuitur alicui ratione singularis persona ita peccatum origiuis tribuitur ratione naturae Either then the Sacrament must have effect upon our Nature to purifie that which is vitiated by Concupiscence or else it does no good at all For if the guilt or sin be founded in the nature as the Article affirms and Baptism does not take off the guilt from the nature then it does nothing Now since your Lordship is pleas'd in the behalf of the objectors so warily to avoid what they thought pressing I will take leave to use the advantages it ministers for so the Serpent teaches us where to strike him by his so warily and guiltily defending his head I therefore argue thus Either Baptism does not take off the guilt of Original Sin or else there may be punishment where there is no guilt or else natural death was not it which God threatned as the punishment of Adam's fact For it is certain that all men die as well after baptism as before and more after then before That which would be properly the consequent of this Dilemma is this that when God threatned death to Adam saying On the day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt die the death he inflicted and intended to inflict the evils of a troublesome mortal life For Adam did not die that day but Adam began to be miserable that day to live upon hard labour to eat fruits from an accursed field till he should return to the earth whence he was taken Gen. 3. 17 18 19. So that death in the common sense of the word was to be the end of his labour not so much the punishment of the sin For it is probable he should have gone off from the scene of this world to a better though he had not sin'd but if he had not sin'd he should not be so afflicted and he should not have died daily till he had died finally that is till he had returned to his dust whence he was taken and whither he would naturally have gone and it is no new thing in Scripture that miseries and infelicities should be called dying or death Exod. 10. 17. 1 Cor. 15. 31. 2 Cor. 1. 10. 4. 10 11 12. 11. 23. But I only note this as probable as not being willing to admit what the Socinians answer in this argument who affirm that God threatning death to the Sin of Adam meant death eternal which is certainly not true as we learn from the words of the Apostle saying In Adam we all die which is not true of death eternal but it is true of the miseries and calamities of mankinde and it is true of temporal death in the sense now explicated and in that which is commonly received But I add also this probleme That which would have been had there been no sin and that which remains when the sin or guiltiness is gone is not properly the punishment of the sin But dissolution of the soul and body should have been if Adam had not sin'd for the world would have been too little to have entertain'd those myriads of men which must in all reason have been born from that blessing of Increase and multiply which was given at the first Creation and to have confin'd mankinde to the pleasures of this world in case he had not fallen would have been a punishment of his innocence but however it might have been though God had not been angry and shall still be even when the sin is taken off The proper consequent of this will be that when the Apostle sayes Death came in by sin and that Death is the wages of sin he primarily and literally means the solemnities and causes and infelicities and untimeliness of temporal death and not meerly the dissolution which is directly no evil but an inlet to a better state But I insist not on this but offer it to the consideration of inquisitive and modest persons And now that I may return thither from whence this objection brought me I consider that if any should urge this argument to me Baptism delivers from Original Sin Baptism does not deliver from Concupiscence therefore Concupiscence is not Original Sin I did not know well what to answer I could possibly say something to satisfie the boyes young men at a publique disputation but not to satisfie my self when I am upon my knees and giving an account to God of all my secret and hearty perswasions But I consider that by Concupiscence must be meant either the first inclinations to their object or the proper acts of Election which are the second acts of Concupiscence If the first inclinations be meant then certainly that cannot be a sin which is natural and which is necessary For I consider that Concupiscence and natural desires are like hunger which while it is natural and necessary is not for the destruction but conservation of man when it goes beyond the limits of nature it is violent and a disease and so is Concupiscence But desires or lustings when they are taken for the natural propensity to their proper object are so far from being a sin that they are the instruments of felicity for this duration and when they grow towards being irregular they may if we please grow instruments of felicity in order to the other duration because they may serve a vertue by being restrained And to desire that to which all men tend naturally is no more a sin then to desire to be happy is a sin desire is no more a sin then joy or sorrow is neither can it be fancied why one passion more then another can be in its whole nature Criminal either all or none are so when any of them growes irregular or inordinate Joy is as bad as Desire and Fear as bad as either But if by Concupiscence we mean the second acts of it that is avoidable consentings and deliberate elections then let it be as much condemned as the Apostle and all the Church after him hath sentenc'd it but then it is not Adam's sin but our own by which we are condemned for it is not his fault that we choose If we choose it is our own if we choose not it is no fault For there is a natural act of the Will as well as of the Understanding and in the choice of the supreme Good and in the first apprehension of its proper object the Will is as natural as any other faculty and the other faculties have degrees of adherence as well as the Will so have the potestative and intellective faculties they are delighted in their best objects But because these only are natural and the will is natural sometimes but not alwaies there it is that a difference can be For I consider