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
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
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
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
shall no flesh be justified in his sight Rom. 4. proveth that even to Abraham and his seed justification was by remission of sin through faith in Christ and not by the Law or their own innocency And if it was so with Abraham's seed it is so still with our seed Arg. 9. Rom. 3. 23. 9 10 c. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation c. go infants have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and must be justified by this propitiation for sin Ver. 9. We have before proved that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin Ver. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God If men will groundlesly say that all these universals are to be limited to the adult they do but say they will believe what they list and words shall signifie what they will Obj. The Text speaks of actors in sin Answ True because it speaks of all the World among whom the adult actors were the principal part Obj. The word All is to be taken limitedly in many other Texts Answ 1. What of that shall we go deny its properest signification without a proved necessity and shall words be taken improperly by us at our pleasure because they are so sometimes where we may prove it 2. Will you allow this plea to them that use it against the texts that speak for Christ's dying for all when yet they have as fair pretence 3. The scope of the Apostle and the oft repeated universals plainly shew that it is the guilt and condemnation on one side and the justification on the other side of all simply that are condemned or justified even of all the World that he speaks of And he lays the strength of his Argument upon the universality for if any might have pleaded not-guilty before God and justified by the Law or their Innocency it had spoil'd the Apostle's argument So many plain Scriptures are not to be forced Arg. 10. If infants without a Redeemer should have been all shut out of Heaven and denied everlasting happiness then are they guilty of original sin But the Antecedent is true go so is the Consequent The minor is granted by those that do oppose us If it were not it 's easily proved 1. From all those Scriptures that appropriate salvation to the Church and to the members of Christ and to such as have it by his purchase and procurement who hath the keys of the Kingdom 2. From those Scriptures that tell us that if any have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that except a man be regenerate and new Born he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with many the like 3. From the incapacity of an unholy soul to see and love God and so to be happy it being a contradiction And God hath given us no ground to believe that he will sanctify all infants after death and that without any satisfaction for their sin by the death of Christ The consequence of the major proposition is proved thus Infants having souls made capable of immortality either shall live immortally or not If not that privation of everlasting life is an evil so great that any rational man would choose a perpetual tolerable punishment to escape it and God would not thus use so many subjects of his Kingdom to whom he hath undertaken to be a King and judge them righteously and all without any measure of sin in them And I find not yet that the adversaries assert this If they do they make infants to be but meer bruits of which anon If they live an immortal life and rise with others then either in Heaven or out of Heaven in happiness or not If not in happiness which is before proved and by them granted then it must be in misery 1. Because the very privation of that happiness is half hell and more 2. Because there is no middle state to a living rational creature they will have feeling and knowledge and go they shall feel good or evil to them and they cannot but know that they are deprived of Heaven and Happiness which knowledge must cause a positive grief And thus God doth afflict them by the greatest privation and some positive pain which Reason or Scripture or his relation of a righteous King and Judge will not suffer us to think that he doth without any sin of theirs For shall not the Judge of all the World do righteously Will he destroy the righteous with the wicked far be it from him Gen. 18. 23 24 25. Had all the infants of the old World of Sodom of Amalek of Midian been wholly free from participating in sin they had not been destroyed by a righteous Judge Arg. 11. If infants are under God's displeasure or deprived of his acceptance and complacency then are they guilty of original sin but the antecedent is true go so is the consequent If they were in the favour of God they would be saved for all the subjects of his Kingdom have the blessings and rewards of loyal subjects that are in favour with him but without Christ and pardon through his blood they would not be saved go c. If they were not under his displeasure he would not deny them his sanctifying grace and heavenly inheritance which they are capable of and which is the portion of his faithful ones But these he doth deny to some and would deny to more or all if it were not for their pardon and reconciliation through Christ Nor would he torment them with pain as he doth many in this life and after kill them and then shut them out of Heaven if he were well pleased with them The consequence is proved in that nothing but sin can make God displeased with a rational creature Only moral evil can deprive them of his favour Were original corruption but malum physicum such a natural evil as blindness lameness sickness madness c. God would not withdraw his favour for it Man hateth a serpent or a toad that have no sin because their natures are contrary to ours but no meer physical evil is evil to God or contrary to his nature and go none such is hated by him A toad is no more contrary or odious to God than a lark go for such evil infants could not fall under his displeasure He loves the sick the lame the leprous as well as the most sound Arg. 12. Infants have a nature derived from their Parents who were corrupt and guilty go they cannot be uncorrupt and innocent The antecedent is undeniable The reason of the consequence is because the cause can produce no effect that 's better than it self What the effect receiveth is from its cause and the cause cannot give that
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