they should believe them and prepare themselves for the tryal upon the supposal of this what should a believer do living upon the borders of the Anti Christian desolation should he build the Church according to Gods general Command of preaching the Gospel or should he believe that the Church should be destroyed according to the Prophecies Here are two crosse wills in appearance yet it is certain that it is the duty of such a one to preach the Gospel according to the Commandment and to leave the vicissitudes and changes of time unto the Lord himself The Apostle saith We are a sweet savour in them that are saved and in them that perish 2 Cor. 2.15 And the Prophet Jeremy foreseeing the captivity of Babylon that it should certainly come to passe did himself believe it and blame the people for their incredulity Yet neverthelesse in the ordinary way he did exhort them to repent and to turn from their Idolatry and other sins that would be the cause of their captivity By all that hath been spoken I now leave to your own conscience to judge what cause you had to raise such tragical out-cries against the contrariety of the two wills and the inevitable misery of man which will soever he obeyed When wise men shall come to the hearing of the matter I believe they will judge that it is rather a pang of your ignorant and blind zeal then of right knowledge And such an horrid expression you have That if a man should study many years for a destroying Principle to dishonour his Creator he could not parallel this which is the sharpest Sword that ever was drawn against the righteousnesse of God pag. 80. Pray Sir be pacified there is no harm done As I have told you before so I say again leave it to God to reconcile his own wills and let us follow that which he hath revealed in his Word But you say The voice of this destroyeth all the testimonies which God giveth of himself What shall we do with those Scriptures where he saith he alters not if there be a secret will of his that controuls his revealed page 81. In this also you may hold your self content for the Scriptures which say God alters not are understood concerning his will of Decree which for the most part is secret to us But for his revealed will in the declaration of mercies and judgments he doth many times and upon sundry occasions alter his promises or threats For these are not made according to his absolute and eternal Decrees but are suspended upon outward conditions as in the case of the Ninevites Hezekiah forealledged In this case the outward revelations of the will of God are but subservient to his eternal Decree And though they seem to our understanding to differ yet they do excellently agree among themselves Now last of all you come to your chiefest argument You cannot see say you how such a wil can agree with the death of Christ and the general tenders of grace These are your words I fear me too many have a hand in nourishing and maintaining this opinion and then no marvail that so many cannot beleeve the record that God gave of his Son So when God sweareth by himself as he liveth he desireth not the death of him that dyeth and that he would have no man to perish but that he gave his Son a light unto the world that all men thorough him might beleeve for which purpose he tasted death for every man and not for the Saints onely but also for the sinnes of the whole world But these sayings are but the revealed will and the same people that hold this revealed will to be a guide to themselves do yet hold a contradiction in the wills of God saying it is true God saith so but his meaning is not so Now this sort of people should not beleeve the revealed will at all if they hold his secret will to be the Superiour pag 81 82. I say the same as formerly though the secret will of God be the Superiour yet we are to look to that which is revealed As for those who affirme that the Lord hath chosen a peculiar number of people from the beginning to salvation If you go to them man by man I think you will scarce finde any one of solid judgment that will tell you we must begin at the knowledge of the secret will of God They all say that you must begin first with the general threats and the general promises and when men are once brought thorough the convictions of the spirit to see their miserable and lost condition then they say they are sit auditors of the doctrine of the Gospel in the tenders and the offers of grace When the promise is apprehended by a true and a lively faitht he next work they say i to attain the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and full assurance of faith And then last of all after many experiences cometh the assurance of election In this method they proceed in the discovery of this mystery and not otherwise Though election be first in the Lords intention yet they hold that the assurance thereof is and ought to be the last in our feeling And so they expound the words of the Apostle give all diligence to make your calling and election su e 2 Pet. 1.10 And further though they maintain an assurance of election yet they do not hold an absolute certainty but such a one as is lyable to many temptations desertions and eclipses Neither do they hold such an immediate assurance as though the elect by intuition did look into the Decrees of God onely they stand for a mediate and discursive knowledge of the grace of election by the necessary effects and fruits thereof As you know the rising of the Sunne by the dawning of the day What other knowledge is this of the secret will of God but that which he himself hath first made discovery of by the fruits As for the secret will of God in the Decree of non-election though they do beleeve according to the Scriptures that there are a great multitude of men that the Lord doth intend to passe by yet if you come to singulars neither you nor any man living can shew who they are in special If you shall say that such and such a one is a notorious evil doer and therefore a reprobate Ananias thought but little better of Paul Lord I have heard of this man how much evil he bath done But the answer was go thy way I have made him a chosen vessel unto me Act. 9.14 If such a one hath continued many years under the means of grace and doth yet stand out in impenitency and hardnesse of heart this is no infallible argument of non-election for men may come into the Vineyard at all houres So farre forth as men live wickedly we may preach hypothetically and conditionally according to the revealed will of God that their courses are damnable and as long as
deserved it And so you lose your cause Thirdly the Apostle saith Lust when it hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1.13 14. To avoid the force of this Scripture you tell us That sinne doth not bring forth death as lust doth bring forth sinne sinne is lusts natural seed but death hath no conceptions by any seed of sinne page 94. But Sir I would entreat you to leave all windings and shifts deale plainly with the words of the text The Apostle saith sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death I do here put it upon you to give a down-right answer seeing the words of the Apostle are so plain If sinne doth any way bring forth death then we must needs conclude that sinne is the cause of death and this is the true meaning of the Apostle But seeing you bind so much upon the Lords institution who hath threatned death to the sinner let us come to the original text In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death And here setting the Lords prohibition aside I do willingly yield that there was no evil in the tree of knowledge of good and evil if we go to evil in the intrinsecal nature thereof but the Lord having forbidden it it was evil to go against his Command In this sense I say though death was threatned by God yet Adams own personal sinne was the meritorious cause of death to himself and to all his posterity And this is the ground of the Apostles speech By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death hath past over all men unto condemnation You labour in many pages together to prove that Adams sinne was no cause of his condemnation and when all comes to all This is your chief ground that the Lord in his institution did ordain to punish sin and sinners with death and therefore sinne is not the meritorious cause of death Good Sir may not both stand together as social causes what do you think of the two Malefactors that were hanged upon the Cross the one on the right hand and the other on the left hand of our Saviour Were they not both put to death by the sentence of the Law yet for all this they were the cause of their own condemnation The converted thief will tell you as much Doest thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation And we indeed justly suffer for we receive the due reward of our deeds Luke 23.40 41. In like manner I say though death was inflicted upon Adam as the just judgment of God yet Adams sinne was the cause of his own condemnation Now whereas you call death a righteous branch It is true if you look to the sentence of the just Judge who hath appointed death as the punishment of sinne yet if you look unto the nature of death he is an enemy The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15.26 Further in the book of the Revelation we read that after the Beast the false Prophet and the Dragon were cast into the lake of fire then death it self was cast into the lake of fire Rev. 20.14 What is the meaning of this but that the Lord Christ is Head and King of the Church and will tread down all his enemies in the several and respective times appointed for their destruction and then last of all death it self shall come to be destroyed If death then be an enemy the last enemy and shall be destroyed as an enemy how can you affirme that it is a righteous Branch Further you argue That death cannot be the fruit of sinne seeing God hath pleased to punish sinne with death sinne and punishment for sinne agree no more than light and darknesse page 91. If this be your opinion I pray you tell me what do you think of that case where God doth punish one sinne with another He gave up the Gentiles to vile affections that they might receive in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet Rom. 1.23 24. If one sinne may be the punishment of another why do you put such a difference betwixt sinne and punishment as betwixt light and darknesse you have another evasion to help you our you say The very voice or death is enough to scare a sinner from his sinnes therefore death is not the natural fruit of sinne page 95. Give me leave to observe the same way of reasoning The Devil if he should visibly appear the very sight of him would be enough to scare a sinner from his sins Therefore a wicked sinner when he doth commit sinne doth not fulfill the lusts of his father the Devil which is to go point blank against the Scripture John 8.44 After this you come to answer a weak and incongruous objection of your own making you feign an adversary to reason in this wile If there had been no sinne there had been no punishment therefore pun shmext must be produced by sinne page 949. In this you deceive your self we do not argue so loosely to make every antecedent a necessary cause of that which cometh after for then by the like reason you might argue as you do If there had been no Law there had been no transgression therefore transgression is produced by the Law We say that sin doth not go before death as a meet antecedent or occasion only but as the meritorious cause of death the Apostle saith sinne bringeth forth death as the cause doth the effect and the wages of sinne is death when the work is done the wages is to be paid Last of all you come to the particular examples of Corah of Herod of Ananias and Sapphira and from thence you reason If death be the natural fruit of sinne why are not all Rebels punished as Corah all proud men as well as Herod all guilty of the sinne of equivocation as well as Ananias This is the substance of your argument page 99 100. To all which I make this answer unlesse they repent they shall meet with the same righteous judgment of God The Lord is free in the execution of judgment as upon those eighteen on whom the Tower in Siloah fel yet that it may appear to you that death is the natural fruit of sinne and that sinne is the meritorious cause of death our Saviour shuts up the matter with these words unlesse you repent you shall all likewise perish Luke 13.1 2 3 4 5. But you go on and strike still upon the same string If I should allow as much demerit in Adams disobedience to bring death as Christ had merit in his obedience both active and passive to bring life into the world yet it would not amount to such a pitch to be the onely cause For though the obedience of Christ was the cause of the coming of life into the world yet the appointment of God was as principal a cause as the obedience of Christ And so though sinne
had been ten thousand times more sinful yet without an Ordinance from God death could never have seized upon the world page 101. 102 103. What is all this but a palpable and grosse mistake of the question or as Logicians call it an ignorance of the elench We do confesse as shrist brought life into the world he brought it in by the institution of his Father so when sinne brought death into the world it was by the just appointment of God to punish sinne with death The question that is in debate betwixt us is whether sinne be the 〈◊〉 cause of death as the obedience of Christ active and passive is the meritorious cause of life If you yield this as yield it you must we have as much as we do desire Next you enquire how sinne may be the cause of condemnation supposing that it cannot be the principal cause you demand whether it may be a cause in subordination And here you tell us that sinne will not be found neither seeing such causes are good in their own nature Well then what is the cause you tell us seeing sinne is an invention of man and the Devil a meere accident that cleaveth to the subject man we may call sinne an accidental cause of condemnation seizing upon man found sinful page 105. If this way of reasoning be good why may not I proceed in the like manner Heat is an accident in the subject fire therefore the heat of the fire is a meere accidental cause of the boyling of the water The force of your reason is no better when you say sinne is a meere accident in the subject man therefore it is onely the accidental cause of condemnation If you well observe the expression you shall find it to be very absurd to call sin a meere accidental cause of condemnation Condemnation is alwayes set in relation to the guilt of some sinne that doth deserve it how then can you call sinne an accidental cause of condemnation The Scriptures say that the Lord will render to every one according to his works that they who commit such things are worthy of death And many passages of the like kind What will you say to all this Here you have a pretty shift to help you out Sinne say you puts a man in a sutable disposition and qualification for death page 106. Indeed our Divines when they speak of eternal life that the Lord will render to every man according to his works they take the word worthy onely for a sutable qualification According to that of the Apostle he hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 Though this may be affirmed of the Saints that they are made meet for eternal life it were too short and too diminuent an expression to affirme that wicked men onely are made suitable to receive vengeance for then the wicked are no more worthy of eternal death then the Saints are worthy of eternal life ☞ which is plainly to crosse the Apostle the wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is eternal life I cannot then but mention your words with a kind of horrour with which you close the Chapter speaking of the wicked they are say you a sutable matter to receive vengeance as Gods people are sutable to receive all the joyes of eternal life Now the joyes of eternal life are the free-gift of God All qualifications dispositions frames of spirit though never so evangelical in the abundance thereof do not abate the worth of an hair of eternal life to be the free-gift of God For there was not the least desarts in a holy life to the procuring of eternal salvation but onely it was the will of God to make eternal life as a Crown to put upon the head of those men that lived holy here which were fit or sutable for the Crown of honour So men that have lived never so notoriously wicked rebeling and blaspheming against God day after day to their lives end are no otherwise worthy than persons fitted as the true subjects sutable for wrath and God is as simply and intirely the authour of the one as the other And so farre you Now I leave it to all tender consciences to understand and to give sentence We do willingly confesse that we cannot merit any thing by our own works in the way to salvation there being such a disproportion between them and the glory to come But I do detest and abhorre that speech of yours when you say that the greatest sinner who continues so all his life long is no otherwise worthy of death than a person fitted or a subject made sutable for wrath and that God is as much the cause of the damnation of the one as the salvation of the other If this doctrine of yours be sound and Orthodox why may not the wicked in hell cast all upon God as the sole Authour of their misery as well as the Saints in heaven ascribe all to the glory of his free grace I will use your own words though to farre better purpose If a man should study many years for a destroying Principle to dishonour his Creator he could not parallel this which is the sharpest Sword that was ever drawn against the righteousnesse of God I have staid the longer upon this point because you have used so many arguments to prove sin to be no meritorious cause of condemnation I have more carefully endeavoured to vindicate the truth because this is one of the first fundamentals that is put into the heart of the Gentiles They knowing the judgment of God against them which do such things that they are worthy of death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1.32 That sinne is the meritorious cause of death and that a sinner is worthy of death is graven in the heart of every man alive and God at seasons doth stirre up the confideration of the guilt of sinne in the conscience of the Gentiles to look after pardon and to make their peace with God The first convictions of the Spirit do begin with considerations of the Godhead and the guilt of sinne that so men may be brought to see their misery And yet you teach us here in this Chapter that sinne is not the meritorious cause of condemnation Now we proceed to your next Chapter CHAP. XII What Adam retained of his forfeiture till his death HERE also you teach such things as do little lesse then strike at the foundation You tell us that Adam after the fall for his body had all the parts and lineaments thereof He had his senses and retained his knowledge And further you adde I make no question but God had so ordered the imployments that he had for Adam some of them to be more spiritual than ever he had to do before his fall and then that he should utterly disable him from the performance thereof will never be made good by any man under
founded upon expresse Apostolical practise and implicite Apostolical precept which we are sufficiently able to prove and evince by the collation of foure Scriptures if we were put upon that argument But this would be too larg a digression from the matter in hand Next you come to shew the sense of the commination And here you tell us that Adam did not dye the same day if the day be taken for the space of twelve or twenty four houres This is in plain termes to contradict the scope and sense of the text For there it is expressely said in the very same moment and instant of time in which our first parents did eat the forbidden fruit their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked Gen. 3.7 If you take this for the eyes of their mind it is most clear that their eyes were opened not onely to see their inward nakednesse in the losse of the image of God but also to feel the guilt of sinne as the just fruit of their disobedience If the opening of the eyes be taken for the eyes of the body then their eyes were opened to see that which they did not nor could see before Their nakednesse before was a nakednesse of honour innocency and righteousnesse but their nakednesse after was a nakednesse of dishonour of misery of sinne of provocation to sin And for the particular time it is expressed in the Comination in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death And accordingly in the same instant of time when they had eaten the forbidden fruit the eys of them both were opened they knew that they were naked Therefore death misery did seize upon them the same day according to the Commination But because you are so peremptory in it that Adam did not dye the same day if the day be taken for an ordinary day of twelve houres long For the clearing of this I would intreat you to answer me this question why did God appear to Adam in the evening in the cool of the day If you shall say it was to call the man and his wife to account for their disobedience I grant this to be true but it doth not satisfie the question for the particular time He might have called him to account at any other time and what necessity was there that it should be left upon record that he came to judgment the very same day The Lord had said in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death and the same day that the forbidden fruit was eaten at evening in the cool or wind of the day as the Hebrew hath it the Lord came to inquire after the fact to give sentence and to execute judgment In Scripture where promises or threats are declared to be fulfilled in such a particular time there the Holy Ghost is punctuall in the observation of the time The children of Israel should be in bondage soure hundred years according to the promise Gen 15.13 14. And when that time was fulfilled the very same day they came out of the land of Egypt with their Armies Exod. 12. 41 42. So our Lord and Saviour did signifie to his Disciples that he should be crucified and slain and the third day rise again Mat. 16.24 And how careful are all the Evangelists to repeat the time of the resurrection that it was on the first day of the week the third day after his passion And so in the present case when it is said in the day that thou eatest thereof shalt thou dye the death to the fulfilling of this the eyes of our first parents were opened the very first day And the Lord came to execute judgment upon them for their disobedience the evening of the same day After all this let us now hear what exposition you do give of the text Though Adam say you did not dye the same day as he did eat of the forbidden fruit yet he forfeited his life to the Lord of the great Charter of the world he was then in a capacity to dye he did then fall under the expectation of death As in the English such a man is a dead man because he is condemned by the sentence of the Law That which you say is true and it is in effect that which I teach but according to your sense it is not the whole truth For when the Lord saith in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death he doth not speak this onely of a capacity of dying but of an actual seizing of death for he was struck with spiritual death the very same day he sinned And for a temporal death likewise though there was not a present dissolution of the soul from the body yet presently he fell under the curse to conflict with Armies of diseases which should never leave him till they had brought him to his grave In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread untill thou return unto the ground for out of it was thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return Chap. 3. ver 19. But now you further adde If Adam had dyed the same day he could not have tilled the ground he could not have lived so long as to see a son of his own To all this I agree if you take death in the most strict sense for the actual dissolution of the soul from the body but what ground have we so to limit the words of the text I have said before that God did smite him the same day with spiritual death and for a temporal death he came under the dominion and reign of it In that famous place when the Apostle saith by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death hath passed over all men to condemnation Rom. 5.12 He doth here speak of the immediate reign of death Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression ver 14. And in the close of all as sinne hath reigned to death so might grace reign thorough righteousnesseunto eternal life v. 21. Therfore the same day that Adam sinned though he lived to till the ground and to beget children after his own image yet he and all his fell immediately under the reign of death so that all who are now born into the world infants as well as others are under the reigne of death by the disobedience of the first man Having given the true sense of the Scripture we will take a view of your interpretation And here you say ☞ that Adam did dye the same day though he lived nine hundred thirty nine yeares after And to make good this strange glosse of yours you tell us that God did not prescribe any quantity of houres but hath declared that a thousand yeares are as one day in his account page 118. I must indeed acknowledge that a day is taken sometimes for a year sometimes for a greater revolution of time as may be seen
the words of the Apostle Rom. 5.12 by one man sinne entred into the world c. You should finde that all then were in one publick man and sinned in him and this is the reason which the Apostle giveth why death passed universally upon all men because in one all have sinned his one act was the act of all But for more abundant confirmation let us consider the scope of the text The drift of the Apostle is to draw a parallel between both the Adams Frist in those points wherein they do agree Secondly in those wherein they do disagree For the points of agreement the most remarkable to the purpose in hand are these First the two Adams are described as two persons which are the roots to their several and respective posterities The first Adam is a root to all his branches and the second Adam is a root to all branches I marvail then what delusion hath seized upon the Examiners who do positively maintain that the first Adam is not here intended as he was the Father of us all Secondly they are described by the plurality of branches as the first Adam had a multiplicity of branches out of him so the second Adam had a plurality of branches out of him And therefore the Apostle doth elegantly proceed in the collation as by the offence of one many be dead so the gift of grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many As by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ And so the Apostle doth compare one Adam to one Christ Adam the root of all his branches Christ the root of all his branches Thirdly they are set forth by the passage of the common sap out of each root into its branches respectively And therefore the Apostle speaketh concerning the first Adam by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death passed over all men The common sap then that passed out of the first man into all his branches is first sinne and then death by sinne By sinne is here principally meant original sinne and all other sinnes that flow from this as the fountain But if further enquiry be made concerning the passage of sin death into all the branches that come of Adam the passage is not all at one and the same instant It is now five thousand six hundred years since the fall of Adam and in all this time original sinne hath been in continual flux and succession As in several generations men come to be born so they actually participate of the sap that comes from the first root The like may be said of the second Adam and of his branches They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse shall reigne in life by one Jesus Christ ver 17. The sap then that cometh from Christ as the common root is grace and spiritual life this doth flow out of him into all his branches And for the passage thereof it is not all at one time but as men come to receive the gift of righteousnesse and to be born anew they come to the actual fruition thereof For let the death of Christ be never so largely tendred to the lost sonnes of men there is no actual participation of him till he be received by faith The words of the text are most emphatical and significant They which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousnesse shall reigne in life As who would say in plainer termes they only shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ who do particularly receive the gift of righteousnesse which is generally offered This is the undoubted meaning of the text And therefore for you to say that we could not sinne in Adam our soules and bodies not being in him how do you answer the scope of the text by the disobedience of one many were made sinners by one man sinne entred into the world Adam is here set forth as the root of all his branches and al the branches were in him as the first publick man What can you or the Examiners say to this 2ly you say that we had no Law in Adam Now where there is no Law there is no transgression if we had received any Law it must have been made known to us but there was none made known to us and therefore there was no Law page 127. To this I rejoyn ☜ if there was no Law given to us in Adam how come we to be guilty of his transgression how come we to bear the burden of his sinne why doth the Apostle speak so plainly by the disobedience of one many were made sinners We must then necessarily come to affirme this for a truth that the Law was given to Adam as a publick man and in him to all his posterity And whereas you say that there was no Law made known to us at that time therefore we had no interest in the Law why do not you infer by the like reason when the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ suffered death upon the Crosse because at that very time the merit of his death was not made known you had no part or portion in that death which was one thousand six hundred years before you were born If you will be loth to stand to the latter to lose your priviledge by the second Adam I pray you give us leave to maintain the dammage that was brought in by the first Adam And yet further to take away all scruples from tender consciences if it might seem harsh for all the sonnes of men to perish by the disobedience of one man especially when the Law was not made known to them in their own individual persons but in the common root of all mankind let us consider how the second man came as a remedy to free the same miserable sonnes of men from the state of sinne and death especially when they neither thought nor knew any thing concerning the means of their salvation The greatnesse of our misery by Adam doth amplifie and set forth the merrit of Christ in the fulnesse thereof Now then when the Examiners and you both go about to extenuate the misery of the fall you do rob Christ of the glory of his grace You say The branch hath not any thing but what it hath by dependance upon the tree Now it is not so with us for that which we call the Principal part of man his soul or spirit was not dependant upon Adam but had his dependancy from the very same fountain from whence Adam received his even from God himself p. 128. Here I confess there is a great question concerning the manner of the propagation of Original sin and men do wearie themselves very much to find out whether the soul be by infusion or by traduction But I see no cause why we should intangle our selves in that difficultie ☞ For whether the soul be infused or
too much and to these the exhortation is given in special that they should be humbled and become as little children There lyeth then a palpable and grosse fallacy in your whole discourse when you take the words absolutely that all infants are free from sinne when our Saviour speaketh in a particular sense only of the act and execution of this or that particular evil Now you proceed and tell us it was never heard that children had any sinne by way of act and by way of omission you cannot make it good that they ever received a command or were capable of any command from God page 138. Answ What we have learned we are willing to acknowledge and though we never heard that infants had any sinne in them by any act of their own yet we have learned from Scriptures yea from the very first principles of the faith that they have it by contagion and the disobedience of the first man The words of our Saviour are plain Joh. 3.8 That which is born of the flesh is flesh And that of the Apostle Rom. 5.12 By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne And many such places there are to prove infants to be guilty of sinne by the disobedience of the first man and to be involved in the pollution of nature by hereditary contagion But because you and the Examiners are so strict upon the point I pray you resolve me in this one case When the promise was made the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head was not this the promise of Christ to Adam after his fall If infants therefore are absolutely acquitted from the guilt of Adams sinne as being another mans act if they be free from the pollution of nature to what end was the promise of Christ How did he come in the nature of a Physician to cure when there was no disease Where there is no malady there needs no remedy And whereas you go about to free infants from the sinne of omission because they are not capable of a command I pray you shew the reason why the Lord was so strict in his command to the Jewish infant that he should be circumcised upon the eighth day and that the uncircumcised man-child should be cut off from his people Gen. 17.11.12 c. For my part I know no reason of the strictnesse of this Law but that the Lord would signifie to beleevers under this dispensation that there infants were born in original sinne and that it was not safe to omit the remedy for that disease And though in strictnesse of termes we will yeeld so farre to Corvinus and to Julian the Pelagian that there is no particular command that forbids an infant to be born in original sinne yet for all this they must needs allow that the Law was given to reveal to convince and to discover the sinne of the nature and by the discovery thereof to drive a man to Christ to look to him onely for sanctifying and regenerating glrace S. Paul saith the Law is spiritual and I am carnal sold under sinne And in the same text I had not known sinne except the Law had said thou shalt not covet Rom. 7. You go on for this sinne called original if infants had committed it God would have called them to repentance for it when they had come to years at least wise but I can safely say that there is no man living that to this day ever made it appear to be the mind of God for any man to repent of that sinne Truly Sir your confidence is very great and you have more boldnesse than truth on your side For we may beleeve that you never heard of the promises nor the commands mentioned in Scripture when you dare affirme such things as these When the Lord promiseth in the new Covenant I will take out of their bowels a heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh Ezek. 36. By the heart of stone he means a hard heart and a sinful nature that every infant did bring into the world he doth promise to take away the corruption of nature and that he will sanctifie his people by his Spirit So for the commands of God we read every where that men are exhorted to put off the Old Adam-like disposition That ye put off concerning the former conversation the Old man which is corrupt according to the deceivable lusts Ephes 4.22 By the Old man he doth mean the carnal disposition which we have from Adam by natural generation This corrupted disposition of the flesh he would have the beleeving Ephesians and in them all others to subdue and mortifie And further if you look to the right use of Baptisme now as of circumcision of old you shall finde that the institution of these things doth primarily intend the doing away of the sinne of the nature as I have already shewed in my Treatise of Infant Baptisme Therefore I cannot but admire at your boldnesse when you stand so much upon it that you can safely say that God never called men to repentance for original sinne I am so farre from your judgment that I think the greatest part of repentance lyes in the mortification of the sinne of the nature But you have an evasion this sinne called original sinne if infants had committed it God would have called them to repentance Here you put that upon us which we do not speak and I know no solid Writer in the world that doth use such an expression of committing original sinne It is proper onely to men of ripe years to commit sinne For original sin we say that is onely by propagation thorough the disobedience of the first man and when men come to be sanctified by the Spirit of God they are qualified with inward principles to purge out the sin of the nature Neither doth your argument drawn from the example of Christ any whit promote your cause You say If this principle should finde a being in the world that every infant was born in sinne because lineally derived from Adam then where will you get water to wash your hands of that grand absurdity to wit that Jesus Christ was not free from original sinne for then he must have a share because he came from the loynes of a woman the Daughter of Adam page 139. To this I answer if you will make Christ and all Infants to run parallel in the purity of their natural birth then why did Christ die for them why did he sanctifie their nature There is no need of salvation by the merit of Chri st where there is no guilt of sinne There needs no sanctification of the Spirit where there is no pollution of nature Why do not you exclude all Infants from these as you do from the water of baptisme For your Argument drawn from the example of Christ If you build so much upon that I would entreat you to consider two things First why he did assume our nature Secondly assuming our
they so continue they are in the way to damnation yet we cannot absolutely pronounce concerning the persons themselves it belongeth onely to God to judge of their final and eternal condition And for that place which you alledg that God sweareth that he desireth not the death of him that dyeth I pray you now tel us the particular man in our method and way of teaching hat is not a capable hearer of this doctrine Whatsoever God doth intend in his secret Decrees concerning the eternal state of men what is that to us We must make the tenders proposals and offers of grace according to the termes set down in the Gospel Indeed as men do submit to the promise and do take Christ for their Head so God doth bring about that which he hath determined in his secret will And therefore when you speak concerning this sort of people That they should not beleeve his revealed will at all if they hold his secret will to be the Superiour what good reason can you shew for that for though the secret will of God touching the salvation of his elect be the Superiour yet all the tenders of grace all faith in the promises are but the ordinary way to bring us to salvation Here is no contrariety of will against will but an excellent subordination Because the Lord had many people in the City of Corinth that did belong to him in the determination of his secret will therefore the Apostle had a command to preach the Gospel in that City and he did continue there the space of a year and six moneths Acts 18. ver 10 11. But if it be further objected how can you pray for the salvation of all seeing that the Lord doth determine to passe by a great number of men I answer though it be so we are to do the duty Paul did know that a greater part of the Jewes should be hardened and that a remnant onely should be saved yet for all this he did preach the Gospel and use all means that he might save some of them Rom. 11.7 8 9 10. Augustine one of the greatest assertors of the prerogative of free-grace in his book de correptione gratiâ hath these words We not knowing who belong to the number of the predestinate and who not ought so to be moved with the affection of charity that we should will all men to be saved And so far as it doth appertain to us who are not able to distinguish the predestinate from them who are not predestinate for this very thing because we ought to will all men to be saved we must medicinally use sharp reproof to all men to save them from perishing Dr. Twisse also hath these words moreover of those who are now alive though the greater part of them should be reprobated seeing this is not known to us there is nothing doth hinder but we may make supplications for all Vindic. grat lib. 2. Crimin 4. Sect. 9 Page 91. Many more testimonies I might bring of that kind of people as you call them who maintain the secret will of God to be the more prevailing yet in order to our understanding they shew that we are to look onely unto that which is revealed They do with one heart and with one mouth declare that you must begin at the lower end of the ladder before you can come to the top As for the secret and the revealed will of God though this seem to us to be contradictory there is no contradiction The river that in appearance seemeth to go another way if you follow it by divers mazes turnings it will bring you to the Sea at last But if you further urge how can the sending of Christ into the world to dy for the lost sonnes of men stand with the Decree of election where some onely are chosen to salvation Answ This point is solidly handled by Dr. Davenant in his answer to that book that bears the title Gods love to mankind and in another Treatise of the death of Christ The scope and tenor of the whole discourse is to shew that the non-elect may be partakers of many fruits of the death of Christ though they are not partakers of that grace which will certainly and infallibly bring them to salvation ☞ and so he doth concord the general attonement with the peculiar Decree of election But because this point is exceedingly controverted in these times and is as it were the very rock of offence I will particularly shew how farre I can go along with you First I do agree that by his death the Son hath removed the bar out of the way that hinders the salvation of man For God having once made a Law in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death according to the rigour of the Covenant of works and the strictnesse of divine justice there was no possibility for any mans salvation But the Lord Christ having once satisfied the justice of God and removed the barre there is now a possibility for all the lost sonnes of men to be saved they are brought into a savable condition notwithstanding all the strict demands of satisfaction according to the first Covenant And this I take to be the natural sense of that place which you and others stand so much upon Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransome for all to be testified in due time 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. The scope of which words is briefly this that seeing the Lord Jesus Christ did give himself as a ransome for all men there is a possibility of salvation forall upon termes of repentance and faith Secondly I do agree with you that by the death of Christ the Lord doth shew patience and long-suffering to the rebellious to invite them to repentance Rom. 2.4 And though since the fall of man the thoughts of his heart were evil from his child-hood yet respect being had to the Mediators blood typed in the sacrifice of Noah the promise to the whole world was that the Lord would no more curse the ground for mans sake but seed time and harvest winter and summer day and night should continue to the worlds end Thirdly I do also agree with you in this that the Lord Jesus by the shedding of his blood hath not onely procured a possibility for the lost sonnes of men but also at seasons he doth give them some portions of spirit enabling them to judge themselves And for temporary believers they go so far in the participation of the fruits of the death of the Son as to tast the good Word of God and the powers of the life to come Heb. 6.5 These are the general fruits of the death of Christ and in this sense we may say that he tasted death for every man In what sense then doth Christ dye for the elect
only He did shed his blood not onely to obtain a possibility for them but that they may be certainly and insallibly brought to glory Hence is it that he speaketh concerning his sheep for whom he dyed in a special manner My Father that gave them me is greater then all and none can take them out of my Fathers hands Joh. 10.29 And in another place who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect it is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that dyed Rom. 8 33 34. The death of Christ for the elect is not only to obtain salvation upon termes of repentance and faith or other general fruits of his death but it is certainly and infallibly to bring them to salvation In relation to this peculiar love the Apostle saith Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Rom. 8.35 And our Saviour John 10.28 I will give them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man be able to take them out of my hand He speaketh these things of his sheep for whom he had layed down his life in that special sense mentioned before Having thus cleared all your Objections in this Chapter we proceed to the next CHAP. XI Whether Adams sinne or any other mans sinne doth produce death or condemnation in a natural way TOuching the manner of the thing how sinne doth cause death whether death be the natural fruit of sinne or whether it doth meerly depend upon the will of him who hath threatned to punish sinne with death is much disputed But Mr. Everard leaving that which may be supposed it is too too plain in this Chapter that you mainly drive at this to prove that sinne is not the meritorious cause of death and that Adams sinne was no cause of his condemnation And then afterwards going to discover the causes of judgment you tell us for the efficient cause God is onely the contriver who doth inflict punishments For the material cause the creatures are the onely instruments For the formal it is the manner of judgment coming upon men the fire by burning the water by drowning For the final it is the declaration of the justice of God upon the contemners of his grace And so you conclude That sin sinne is no cause of punishment neither efficient material formal nor final page 95. 96. And for the meritorious cause You say also that sinne doth not merit death but it doth onely prepare fit and qualifie a man for death as grace doth for eternal life page 106 107 108. You do not shunne to tell us in the last two lines of the Chapter speaking of eternal life and eternal death That God is as simply and entirely the Author of the one as of the other Page 108. In opposition to all this I do affirme that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death is the fruit of sin Let us consider the Scriptures and let us vindicate them from your cavils First it is said the wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is eternal life Rom. 6.23 From hence it is plain that eternal life sanctification of the Spirit belief of the truth and all other things that tend to salvation are the meer gift of God but the wages of sinne is death If death be the wages of sin then sinne must be the meritorious cause of death But say you Though death be the wages of sinne yet it is not the fruit thereof page 91. Though in some cases we may call that the fruit which is not the wages yet in the sense of the text the wages and the fruit are all one Read but the words going before What fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed the wages of sinne is death The fruit and the wages are all one and the sense of the whole text is this that sinne is the meritorious cause of damnation For the second Scripture Rom. 8.6 To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Here say you If it be death it self it cannot be the cause of death But Sir you are to look to the sense and not to the strictnesse of the letter In strict termes you cannot say that to be spiritually minded is life and peace In this life many that are truly spiritual that have the reality of grace in their heart have not the peace of grace The meaning of the text is briefly this that as peace and life doth follow a spiritual mind so death doth follow the carnal mind as the wages and fruit thereof But here you shew your skill at catch-ball I confesse say you that he who walketh carnally to his end shall receive eternal death so he that lives a spiritual life shall enjoy everlasting life But neither the death nor the life were any branches produced by either for they came both from God And as God hath no desire that any man should sinne so sinne hath as little desire to receive punishment pag. 92. Still you go on in the same way of sophistry We willingly agree that he who walketh spiritually to the end shall receive eternal life because such walking is the way to eternal life But the carnal walking is not only the way that leadeth to death but by a Metonymie the effect being put for the cause it is death it self or in the way of causality a carnal mind is that which produceth death and death is the fruit thereof But whereas you affirme that neither death nor life are branches produced either by carnal or spiritual walking in this you erre For though a godly walking is not the meritorious cause of eternal life yet a carnal and sinful walking is the meritorious cause of eternal death Why else should it be said The wages of sinne is death Masters use to pay their servants their wages at night in relation to that which they have deserved in the day and for a weeks work they pay them commonly at the end of the week The payment of wages hath near relation to the labour of the hireling that hath deserved it And therefore the Scriptures do use this expression the wages of sinne is death shewing that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death is the desart of sin And for that expression of yours that death is no branch produced by sin ☞ but it cometh meerly from God who inflicteth death this I think no pious man can look upon but with a great deal of horror What is this but to transfer the cause of death upon God onely But if to mend the matter you shall say that God doth inflict death as the just punishment of sin in so saying you contradict your self and blow up your own position For if God doth inflict death as the punishment of sin then it will follow that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death doth not onely come from God but also from the sinner who hath
in the Prophetical Scriptures But the scope of the text is plainly to be taken for a literal ordinary day as we have formerly proved And strange it is that the Lord in the denunciation of judgment should go to the typical and parabolicall expressions used in Daniel and the Revelation and Peters Epistle After this you come to enquire whether Christ by his suffering did not prevent the falling of death upon Adam And you resolve it in the negative For say you either Adam must suffer or the Word of God seeing God had once declared the sentence thou shalt surely dye In case then he should give his Son to prevent the death of Adam there had been a clear contradiction page 119. In the commination there are some things which I do acknowledge to be infallible as the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not and therefore to make good the sentence all that are now born into the world after the course of natural generation are borne in the state of spiritual death subject to the miseries of nature and shall inevitably be brought to temporal death at last All these things do hold by vertue of the first sentence yet you must take heed that you go no further because the second man hath all fulnesse of grace to repair the losses brought in by the first By his intervening patience and long-suffering is extended to all the sonnes of men And therefore whatsoever you suggest to the contrary there is indeed and in truth no contradiction between the sentence in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death and the delay thereof in a qualified sense In some particulars long-suffering may be extended and yet in others there may be a speedy execution of the sentence But you go on seeing God would not have Adam to come near the tree of life therefore he would not have him to be free from death that way page 119. Neither do we maintain that it was the purpose of God to free Adam in that manner that he should not taste of a temporal death He came under the dominion of that death the same day he sinned and the most holy Saints that are must all dye before they can be raised again to set forth the truth and certainty of the Lords commination Yet for all this at present the stroke was stayed by the Mediators blood and long-suffering was extended to men that salvation might be had by the Covenant of grace As for the tree of life it is most true that God did forbid Adam accesse to that tree not absolutely because he would not have him to recover life but because he had provided another way for the restoring of man by Christ the promised seed He would not come to the most extream and final execution of the sentence because his purpose was to have a posterity upon the earth and a seminary for the Church Further you argue there was a necessity for Adam to dye otherwise Christ could not make him alive page 119. Here you mistake the state of the question we agree that Christ did not dye simply to free man that he should not fall into the dust but only to raise him from the dust again It was necessary to fulfill the truth of the commination that Adam should return to dust but it was not necessary that he should return to dust the very same day It was necessary that he should fall under the reign of death and under a necessity of dying the same day he sinned and this to continue to the resurrection of the just Then this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruptible shall put on incorruption 1 Cor. 15.53 The Apostle also saith when he shall change these vile bodies that they may be made like his glorious body Phil. 3.21 All the bodies of the Saints shall be made like the body of Christ as now it is in glory But how did the bodies of the Saints begin to be vile bodies By vile bodies he doth mean these corruptible tabernacles of the soul lyable to diseases and to all the miseries of nature But when did this vilenesse and misery begin seeing they were not made vile by creation They began to be vile bodies the same day that Adam did sin they have been so ever since and they must continue such unto the resurrection and then the bodies of the Saints shall be made conformable to the bodie of Christ in glory Philip. 3 Vlt. CHAP. XIV Whether Adam did dye a spiritual death yea or no IN the discovery of this point you observe this method First you shew what spiritual life is Secondly you resolve upon the question For your description of spiritual life though you miserably confound the Scriptures we will take it in the best sense for such a life as hath the Spirit for the cause Gal. 4.19 John 6.63 Col. 33. But you erre in your application when you use such an expression as this that Adam had not such a cup of water in all his foure Rivers You say also that he could not savour the voice of the resurrection from the dead for the goodnesse of a Saviour must be resented by those that are lost but Adam knew no such need page 122. Your argument is fallacious because Adam had not spiritual life in the same way as the Saints now have therefore he had no spiritual life at all He might have ability to love Christ as Lord Creator Further you say that the voice of forgivenesse of sinne was a stranger to him Well let this be admitted it doth not prove the point neither Sicknesse it self was a stranger to Adam before his fall will you inferre then that there were no herbs for medicine and that the Lord did not create the herb of the field with a medicinal vertue So in the like case what if remission of sinne and the way of pardon of sinne by Christs blood was a thing hidden from Adam as being not compatible with his condition will you inforce from hence a want of capacity in him to understand the mystery of salvation by Christ or will you affirme from hence that he was a meere carnal man before his fall Take heed that by these and such like positions you do not reflect upon God himself The Apostle saith the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8. ver 6 7. If you go to the Original of this enmity or non-subjection and say it did proceed from the fall of Adam you do agree with us But if you go higher and stand upon it that Adam was a meere natural man by the condition of his creation then you will lay the blame upon God that set him in such a state of enmity and whither will you go in the issue if you maintain such positions as these But to make good your assertion you argue The first man is of the earth earthy the
uncircumcised It is therefore a poor and a weak shift of the Examiners who to illude the force of that Scripture I was conceived in sinne and born in iniquity do not shunne to tell us that Davids father was a pious man in Israel and his mother was a godly Matron and being both of them well grown in grace before they begat this their youngest sonne they were more like to convey grace and holinesse if that be communicable than sinne unto him Be like then these new Divines think the grace of God runnes in a blood at least wise that it is a more probable truth than to beleeve the propagation of the sin of the nature Now you come to open the text and here say you If we had all committed sinne in Adam then of what use were these words by the offence of one I do not finde such a saying parallelled viz that one mans offence can be called all mens act that followed him and that without their knowledge and consent page 131. If in this point you would seriously ponder the Scripture you will have your doubts resolved The words of the Apostle are plain by the disobedience of one many were made sinners How came they to be sinners to have the guilt of sinne imputed and original sinne derived with all the effects and fruits thereof but by the disobedience of one man If that be true which is affirmed by you that one mans disobedience cannot be called all mens act by the strictnesse and rigour of such a position you will take away the very ground and strength of the Apostles argument and destroy the parallel which he doth draw between Adam and Christ The whole tenor of his discourse is turned upon this hing as the disobedience of one man is the act of all the posterity that came after him so the obedience of one man is the act of all the posterity that beleeve in him And whereas you say you cannot finde such a passage as this parallelled in Scripture I would entreat you to consider the temporal judgments of God as they have been poured upon several families The house of Eli were to suffer for many generations when all that came of that linage did not know what Eli did neither did they give consent to the sinnes of Hophni and Phinehas yet for all this it is clear that the sinne did redound to the posterity 1 Sam. 2.32 Now you come to acquaint us with some of your observations and you tell us I have heard say and true it is that what being we had in Adam we had it assoon as himself and so if we had done the same actions he had done nothing before us page 131. In this I do agree with you that it is true that the whole nature of man as it hath in time subsisted in thousands and millions did originally subsist in Adam as in the common root I do agree also that what Adam did as the first publick man he did it in our stead yet if you will go to moments and scruples of time we must say also that in order of existence Adam had a being before us we must say that Adams personal sinne was before the pollution of nature but our nature is first polluted in the corrupted masse before we come to commit sin in person nay before we come personally to exist You have a second answer to the words of the text you say If we had all committed that sinne in Adam that he was called to account for then we should have sinned after the same similitude but we sinned not after the same similitude and so we committed not the same sinne And here also I yield according to the strictnesse of termes that we could not siune after the similitude of Adams transgression for Adam sinned by a deliberate will and by a free choyce so could not we Yet neverthelesse though we could not sinne after the same similitude we might sinne in him as the first publick man For proof of this read but the words of the text Neverthelesse death reigned from Adam to Moses even ever them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression verse 14. The Apostle speaketh of Infants for two thousand five hundred years from the fall of Adam to the giving of the Law upon Mount Sinai Here I demand how could death reign over the Infants aforesaid No Law was then publickly given upon Mount Sinai and the Infants had no understanding neither could they give any consent of will How then could death justly reign over them seeing they never committed any sinne in their own persons Though they did not yet they sinned in the first man and by the reign of death universally over all men over Infants as well as others the Apostle proveth this assertion How weakly then do the Examiners of the late Confession argue when they say surely If the Apostle had beleeved any such thing as the reigning of death over all men by the first mans sinne he would not have omitted that and onely mentioned from Adam to Moses page 81. Though he doth mention the reign of death from Adam to Moses this doth not imply any thing to the contrary but that death hath reigned ever since The words are plain death hath passed over all men to condemnation But there was lesse reason for it that death should reigne from Adam to Moses when the Law was not publickly delivered especially over Infants that never sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression But seeing experience hath plainly shewed in this whole interval of time that death hath reigned over Infants by this medium the Apostle proveth them to have been guilty of sinne How guilty of sinne Not in their own persons for they never committed any but onely in Adam the common root of all mankind And so that universal affirmation is made good by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death hath passed over all men to condemnation The universality of death doth prove the universality of sinne in the first man But you further stand upon a priviledge to interpret the words of the text why in such a case as this say you may not I have the same priviledge to give an exposition of these words in whom all have sinned seeing no sound Scripture can be given to evince the conscience of any certainty of committing sinne in Adam page 133. For that freedome of expounding one Scripture by the accounts of another ☜ by my consent you shall have it for I think the strongest Demonstration in divine matters is drawn from the harmony of Scripture And upon these grounds we do proceed because the whole Gospel in a manner is concerning the regenerating work of the Spirit Hence we do argue that the nature is defiled And because the promise is to beleevers and their seed in the last dispensation we do hereupon conclude the right to the seal as I have already proved against you in
Mr. Everard hath in substance spoken before we are content to let them pass in this matter From the eleventh place they do conclude absolutely that infants are free from all kind of sinne These are their words doth not the Apostle remove not onely from children malice but also all evil of iniquity when he would have the Corinthians in that behalf conformed to them 1 Cor. 14.20 saying Brethren be not children in understanding howbeit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in malice or iniquity be children page 70. Here as I have formerly touched is a palpable sophisme a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as Logicians terme it For though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the general notion thereof may signifie all evil of iniquity yet in the sense of the text it noteth the particular evil of malice onely and therefore he saith in malice be ye children Neither is it his purpose to acquit children from all kind of malice or envy for they have seminally and vertually the seed of all this in their hearts Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain the spirit that is in us lusteth unto envy Jam. 4.5 We see by experience that this is no fable that envy is naturally seated in the heart of man one child many times doth envy another for a little coat And though God doth give to the Regenerate more grace to purge out the sinne of the nature as it is afterward expressed in the next verse but he giveth more grace wherefore he saith God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble Notwithstanding all this the nature of man doth lust to envy and it is vertually and eminally in infants You will say then why doth the Apostle exhort in malice be ye children His meaning is this that they should do as children who are apt to forget the wrongs and injuries that are done to them and to look-upon them as though they had never been And therefore the Apostle saith be angry but sinne not let not the Sun go down upon your wrath Ephes 4.26 This is all one with that expression in malice be ye children that is do not retain heart-burnings and hatred one against another but forget the wrongs and injuries that are done to you as children do It is but a comparative speech These are all the places of Scripture which are alledged by these Censors to prove the purity of the natural birth and how well they have done it we leave to any indifferent understanding to judge and yet how do they glory when they utter such words as these page 71 Thus we have proved that neither the guilt of our first parents sinne was imputed nor their spiritual death in sinne and corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity or to any one of them by ordinary generation And directing their speech to the Assembly after this manner do thus insult though this your doctrine say they hath gone from hand to hand a long time by tradition yet neither did the Scribes and Pharisees nor yet the disciples of Christ and much lesse Christ himself hold forth any such doctrine nor were any of them leavened with this opinion of yours and your long mistaken Predecessors For the Pharisees with the Jewes being highly displeased with him who was borne blinde and whose eyes Christ had opened for defending his Saviour and blessed Oculist said thus unto him John 9 34. Thou wast altogether born in sinne and doest thou teach us Whence it is evident that they did neither conceive all men in general nor yet themselves to be by propagation conceived and born in sinne page 71. What apprehensions and conceptions soever the Pharisees and other Jews had I will not dispute Sure I am they who do rightly understand the doctrine of the Jewish Church could not well be ignorant of the sinne of the nature For when our Saviour did discourse of the necessity of regeneration and Nicodemus did admire at the strangnesse of that doctrine our Saviour made him this answer Art thou a Master in Israel and knowest not these things John 3.7 In which words it is plain that the pollution of the natural birth and the necessity of regeneration were then points easie to be known and a wonder it was to our Saviour that any could be ignorant of such fundamentals And I cannot but admire that these men Mr. Everard and the thirty separate Congregations should professe themselves to be members of the Christian Church and be ignorant of these things But our Examiners build upon our Saviours words neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him Where according to your doctrine say they our Saviour should have answered positively that both he and his parents with all his progenetors even as farre as Adam had sinned What need was there at all that our Saviour should speak of the common cause of the misery of all mankind seeing the Disciples question was more immediately touching the particular blindnesse of this man They were not ignorant that original sinne was the common cause of all diseases onely they did put the question what was the proper cause of the blindnesse of this individual man whether it did lie in himself or in his parents that he was born blind In relation to this particular question for any eminency or singularity of sinne above other men the answer is plaine that neither he nor his parents have sin'ned This was the presumption and singular opinion of the Pharisees as it appeareth in the aforementioned words Thou wast altogether born in sinne and dost thou teach us The whole Processe of this argument is a meere fallacy à dicto secundum quid addictum simplicietr They go on and from the Lords appointing the Cities of refuge for the Man slayer to flee unto when he had killed his Neighbour unawares they reason The Lord commanded by Moses that Cities of refuge should be set apart in all the coasts and habitations of Israel for such to flee to and will he pursue the innocent seed of Adam and hold them guilty for their fathers sinne perpetrated ere they were born Yea will he himself be the avenger of the blood against these innocents page 70. In answer to this I say did these men seriously consider the whole truth they would not raise such tragical cryes against this doctrine The Cities of refuge anciently appointed for the Man-slayer were types and figures of Christ to come To him only the soul is to fly when she is pursued by the curse of the Law as by an avenger of blood So then if all the children of Adam were lyable to the guilt of his sinne perpetrated before they were born there is no harshnesse in the saying if we beleeve that the fall of Adam doth open a door to the grace that comes by Christ and that the grace of Christ is a City of refuge for the lost sinner to fly to
this Scripture First seeing they will not have the nature of man to be defiled in Adam how is this common nature called by the title of one man seeing it containeth such an infinite number of men Secondly how did sin by this one man enter into the world For this common nature of one man must either be nature pure or nature impure If they will have this to be meant of nature pure then this necessarily must be the meaning of the text by one common pure natural man sin entered into the world and death by sin c. As this is a strange and wild interpretation in it self so it doth cast the blame only upon God for making such a nature that by it generally death should passe upon all men to condemnation But if to amend the matter they shall say that he made the nature of Adam in creation and the nature of every man pure in natural generation but it is their own fault that they corrupt themselves Here the plaister is not wide enough for the sore for the Apostle gives the reason why death passeth upon all men because in one all have sinned But now if it be true as these Censors say that in one common nature all have not sinned but those only that fall through their personal disobedience Here I would have them to shew why doth death passe upon all men and how will this satisfie the sense of the Apostle By their account then only they should be lyable to death who were guiltie of disobedience in their pure nature But let us suppose that they say by one common nature impure sin entred into the world and then this will be a grosse tautologie Besides if the whole nature of man be impure there must be some cause of the general depravation of nature which will bring us to the disobedience of the first man and so they will lose their cause Further I demand if by one man they understand the common nature of all how will they preserve the Emphasis of the Apostle in opposing one man to all men He plainly saith that death hath passed upon all men but how thorough the means of one man Again how will they make it good that by the disobedience of one many were made sinners in case they take one man for the common nature of men The acts of obedience or disobedience are usually attributed to particular persons that live under some Law But they have a better faculty to cavil at the truth than positively to maintain their own heterogeneal doctrines Let us hear then what cavils they have against the true interpretation of the words First say they this one by whom sinne entred into the world is not meant by our first parent Adam for the Apostle shews that he was not the original or first sinner 1 Tim. 2.14 For Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression According to your doctrine then the Apostle should have said by one woman sinne entred into the world page 78. Indeed the scope of his doctrine in that text is to shew that the woman was more immediately tempted by Satan and she was first in the transgression yet in the matter of propagating original sinne it is as true also that by one man sinne entred into the world For Adam and Eve make but one root in the propagation of the kind and therefore in the institution of marriage it is said for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh Gen. 2 24. In the case then of Propagation Adam and Eve go but for one and Adam is here immediately opposed to Christ so farre forth as he is the root of all his posterity Secondly say they these words And death passed upon all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are thus to be rendred in as much or so farre forth as all have sinned page 78. Well let the words be rendred which way they will the scope of the text and the connexive particle for do plainly shew that they contain the reason of the general passage of death upon every individual man And therefore we must necessarily and unavoidably come to the disobedience of the first man in whom as in the common root all have sinned Thirdly they thus except If the Apostle had beleeved any such thing as the reigning of death upon all men by the first mans sinne he would not have omitted that and onely mentioned from Adam to Moses page 81. Though he doth speak of the reign of death from Adam to Moses he doth not hereby restrain it to that particular time onely For he plainly saith that death passed upon all men absolutely and universally in all times but he doth mention the time from Adam to Moses in special because then it seemed to be more rational and congruous that sinne should not be imputed because no Law was then publickly delivered yet in this time he affirmeth that all universally were under the reign of death not onely Cain the builders of Babel the people of the old world and the Cities of Sodom all which were destroyed for their personal sinnes but he plainly affirmeth that death reigned over infants in all that interval of time though they never sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression If infants be under the raign of death we must necessarily suppose that sinne must be the cause thereof but infants cannot commit any sinne personally Therefore they must be supposed to be guilty of sinne through the disobedience of Adam And this makes good the main argument of the Apostle by one man sinne entred into the world he doth argue from the effect to the cause because death hath universally past upon all by the disobedience of one therefore all were involved in the guilt of that disobedience Fourthly say they the nineteenth verse is more plain against universal corruption by the first mans disobedience for there the Apostle useth the word many and saith by one mans disobedience many not all were made sinners therefore all did not fall in the first individual Adam page 82. Though the word many be equivocal yet in the sense of the text it must necessarily be meant of every individual man because death hath absolutely passed upon every man no one excepted therefore it necessarily followeth that this passage by the disobedience of one many were made sinners must be meant of every individual man But here they have a cavil the word many in the latter part of the verse must have the same latitude allowed for the Apostle setteth down a full comparison of equals in that verse Here the verse must be thus interpreted that as by one mans disobedience all were made sinners so by one mans obedience all were made righteous page 82. Neither will this help the matter for it is not necessary that there should be the same latitude in the collation betwixt the first and the second
man onely this is sufficient that the first man is the root of all his branches and all that come of him were made sinners by him and the second man is the root of all his branches and all that are ingraffed into him are made righteous by him Secondly some of them that stand for the universal redemption do not plead an absolute or universal justification of all men by the obedience of the first man but onely plead for a general impretation or possibility of salvation which then onely comes to be applied when men believe and receive the promise by a lively faith Thus we have passed through all the arguments of the Examiners and we have seen their cavils against the several Scriptures alledged by us As for those similitudes of punishing the posterity of Traitors for the treason of their parents and the killing of the young vipers with the old by reason of their poysonous nature c. forasmuch as these are onely illustrations of the truth so all the pains which they take here is onely to cavil at illustrations Other passages they have of lesser moment which we have answered before onely they have one argument in the Chapter of free will from that place Isaiah 7.14 Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and chuse the good the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her Kings Here they would have us observe two points First that though this place be commonly understood of our Saviour yet it is meant of the common state of man Secondly this child from his infancy according to the common state of mankinde should have the knowledge and ability to refuse the evil and choose the good From hence they do inferre that a natural man can both will and act according to his first integrity untill he disables and corrupts himselfe Further they stand upon it that a man hath a power to choose the good and to that purpose they cite the words of Moses Deuteronomie 30.19 I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore choose life page 126 127 128. If they did well understand the meaning of these Scriptures they would not pervert them to so strange a sense For the Text in Isaiah we do acknowledge that the children in an ordinary way have a power to choose the good and to refuse the evil when they come to yeares of discretion But what kinde of good is here meant not that good which is spiritual or divine for this they cannot chuse without an inward work of the Spirit but that good onely which is moral and civil and this at yeares of discretion men are able to make choyce of And for the words of Moses I have set before you blessing and cursing therefore choose life c. To the clearing of this Let us distinguish First what he speaks of and Secondly the persons to whom he speaks First if by choosing the good be meant the true God in opposition to all the Heathen gods of the Gentiles here Moses speaks to the Israelites as to a people that had cleare evidences and convictions that there was no other God in all the world but theirs onely And therefore he doth exhort them to chuse the true God for their God Secondly if by choosing the good be meant the loving of the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soule as it is implyed verse 10. then this word of command is given onely in relation to the word of promise verse 6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live In immediate relation to this promise Moses saith I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God to walk in his wayes and to keep his commandments that thou mayest live verse 16. So then we do conclude that the ability to choose the good is not from any natural power but from the grace of God and the word of promise Thus I have gone thorough all the reasons which are alledged either by Mr. Everard or the Examiners the late Patrones of the purity of natural birth If they have any thing more to say for this my desire is that they would shew their strength or else confesse their wicked errors and submit to the clear evidence of truth Now let us consider the several and respective arguments of Dr. Jeremy Taylor and what hath been lately said by him concerning the same subject The third Book containeth the Answer to several Arguments of Dr. Jeremy Taylor in his Vnum Necessarium and two smaller Treatises of his Forasmuch as this Learned man doth tread in the footsteps of our Antagonists and doth plead the same things against the Doctrine of original sinne as they have pleaded against us for certain years last past And seeing also that many are like to be taken with the purity and elegancy of his Style that probably are not able to judge of the foulenesse and impurity of his Doctrine We have thought it worth our labour to provide an antidote to secure the soules of men and if it may be possible in a peaceable and brotherly manner to reduce him from the evil of his opinions And so we come to the several Sections of the sixth Chapter in the treatise aforesaid SECT 1. Of Concupiscence and original sinne and whither or no and how far we are bound to repent of it ORIGINal sinne is so called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or figuratively meaning the sinne of Adam which was committed in the original of mankind by our first parent Answ We deny not but the sinne of Adam may be called the original or the first sinne because it was the first that was committed But then we must take heed that with our Authour we do not deny also the pollution and the corruption of the natural birth In so doing we must needs destroy regeneration or the new birth we must needs also evacuate the Baptisme of the Spirit so farre as it doth seal regeneration humiliation for the birth sinne will be a meere non ens and the mortification of the sinne of the nature will be a nullity In a word one of the chief ends of the Christian faith which is to put on the Christ-like disposition will be frustrated and greatly impaired For what need I to put on the new disposition as it is from Christ the root of all grace and spiritual life if there be no pravity and sinfulnesse of nature from Adam the root of corruption In Scripture the one is set forth as the immediate opposite to the other But he further sheweth This sinne brought upon Adam all that God threatned but no more a certainty of dying together with the proper effects and affections of mortality Answ Besides the affections of mortality and the certainty of dying this sinne also brought upon Adam the depravation of original righteousnesse
a sense as he understands it the old Pelagians may make good that position of theirs that original sinne is by imitation they that come after do onely imitate the ensample of him that went before Of the entrance of death by sin he speaketh as followeth Death by sinne that is death which at the first was the condition of nature became a punishment upon that account just as it was with the Scrpent to creep upon his belly and the woman to be subject to her husband Answ In these words of his he doth distinguish between death as a meere condition of nature and death as a punishment The former he will have to be in the state of innocency latter only to be introduced by the fall But against this I have many things to alledge First if Adam should have dyed in innocency and that meerely by the condition of his nature what can we possibly make of the sense of that commination in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death what propable interpretation can we give of those Scriptures by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne The wages of sinne is death Rom. 6. Vlt Surely all this plainly sheweth that death came into the world meerely by the sinne of man and if he had not sinned he had not dyed Further the Apostle said the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15.16 The question is when did death begin to be an enemy and from what time are we to fetch the date thereof If Adam should have dyed in innocency than the enmity of death must begin in Paradise we must fetch the date of it from the creation and not from the fall And so consequently death will be rather the work of God than the fruit of sinne But let it be supposed in this low and dimunitive sense that death came into the world as a punishment and began to be penal at the fall onely If we take the matter in this sense it will not serve his turn neither nor will other passages of his doctrine abide the rigour of this interpretation For how often doth he plead after this manner In other cases saith he Lawes be not given to Ideots infants and persons uncapable why should they be given here In all cases of the world it is unjust to lay the sinne of the father upon the children and is it otherwise in this case onely And if the answer may be admitted any man may suffer for the sinne of any father because it may be said here as well as there that although the innocent must not perish for anothers fault yet the son is not innocent as being in the fathers loynes when the fault was committed and the Law calls him and makes him guilty Many such Aphorismes he hath where he sheweth or at least endeavours to shew how contrary it is to the justice and mercy of God any way to burthen the posterity of Adam with the guilt of his sinne And yet here he confesses plainly and openly that death quatenus a punishment in the penalty of it came into the world by the disobedience of the first man How he can make one part of his doctrine to agree with the other it passeth all understanding of mine to discerne In his answer to the Bishops letter he seemeth to me to let fall a strange contradiction I have saith he the plain words of Saint Paul death passed upon all men forasmuch as all have sinned all men that is the generality of mankind all that lived till they could sinne Others that dyed before dyed in their nature not in their sinne neither Adams nor their own save onely that Adam brought it upon them or rather left it to them himself being disrob'd of all that could hinder it Answ let page 49. Here in the former part of his words he saith that infants dye in their nature not in their sinne neither Adams nor their own and yet he tells us again that Adam brought in death upon them and through his disobedience they were disrobed of all that could hinder it If he did bring in death upon them then they did not dye purely in their own nature they must some way die in or by his sinne Again if they dyed purely in their own nature and not at all in his sin how can he be said to bring in death Can he bring in death and can he not bring in death and all this upon one sort of people at one and the same time Neither can I see how he will acquit himself if it should be put upon him to shew the true reason why infants are lyable to burning feavours convulsion fitts and passe through the pangs of death at last Are these the infelicities of nature Then God hath made them in this state and their misery will be purely the work of his own hands Are these the punishment of Adams sinne then the innocent child will bear the burden of his fathers iniquity in such a case where it is not possible for the son to follow the fathers ensample which is plainly to give up the cause Now let us consider what he saith of the quality of the persons upon whom there hath been such a passage of death Death saith he passed upon all men that is upon all the old world who were drowned in the flood of divine vengeance and who did sinne after the similitude of Adam and therefore the Apostle St. Paul addes that for a reason inasmuch as all men have sinned Ans Though the word all in it self hath an ambiguity in it yet the scope of the text the condition of the subject doth plainly demonstrate that the passage of death from Adam as a common root must be absolutely upon all men as men so farre forth as they are his sonnes and not upon all to the flood only But concerning this matter we have his meaning more fully in the next passage If all men saith he have sinned upon their own account as it is certaine they have then these words can very well mean that Adam first sinned and all his sonnes and daughters sinned after him and so dyed in their own sinne by a death which at the first and in the whole constitution of affaires is natural and a death which their own sinne deserved but yet was hastned and ascertained upon them for the sin of their Progenitor Answ In these words of his as plausibly as he seems to speak of the cause of death he puts that for the cause which is not the cause and where he speaks of the true cause it doth not answer the sense of the text First he puts that for the cause that is not the cause For from what Scripture or from what consequence of Scripture doth he prove it that Adam and his sonnes in the whole constitution of affiaires should have dyed a death that is natural The Scripture doth every where make death to be the fruit of sinne
as we have formerly proved Againe it is most true that men dye because by their own sinne they deserve death but the scope of the Apostle is here onely concerning the disobedience of the first man and the passage of death upon all by the account of his sinne That which is the principal cause of death at least to the purpose in hand he looks upon it as a businesse by the by In the next words he cometh to deliver himself more clearly for speaking of the fall of Adam he addeth Sin propagated upon that root and vicious ensample or rather from that beginning not from that cause but dum ita peccant similiter moriuntur If they sin so then so shall they die so Saint Hierom. Answ This passage though it be clothed with the words of Hierom it hath the sense of the Pelagians For observe what he saith sin is propagated from that vicious ensample it doth descend from Adam not so much as a cause but as a beginning and so far as men tread in his steps they are lyable to the same punishment In his answer to the Bishops letter he brings in an ensample to confirme this way of exposition these are his own words To this purpose we have an ensample of Gods transmitting the curse from one to the other Both were sinners but one was the Original of the curse or punishment So said the Prophet to the wife of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14.16 He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sinne and made Israel to sinne Joroboam was the roote of the sin and of the curse here it was also that I may use the words of the Apostle that by the sin of one man Jeroboam sin went into all Israel and the curse captivity or death by sinne and so death went upon all men of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inasmuch as all men of Israel have sinned So far he page 32. By this instance of his it is cleare that Original sin must passe into the world not so much by propagation as by imitation The Kings of Israel did walke in the wayes of Jeroboam that made Israel to sin and thereupon the curse captivity and death came upon all the whole succession and upon all Israel so far forth as they did walk in his waies and did follow his ensample If this be a parallel case we must say sin the guilt of sin and the curse for sin came into the world only by the institution and command of the first man and all his posterity are so far forth involved in his sinne as they walk after such an injunction and imitate that ensample Now if this be so I will leave it to any man to judge whither this gloss will go at last The Apostle saith that the first man is the figure of him that is to come If therefore we are implicated in the sinne of Adam no otherwise but by obeying his command and following his ensample Our salvation by Christ will chiefly consist in our imitating of him and in obedience to his commands As for the merit of his blood the worth of his passion the imputation of his righteousnesse all this must be set apart as a matter of little use and small profit Having done with his own he cometh to paraphrase upon the exposition given by us They think these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forasmuch as all have sinned ought to be expounded thus death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned meaning that in Adam we really sinned and God doth truely and justly impute his sin to us to make us as guilty as he that did it and as much punished and lyable to eternal damnation and all the force of this great fancy relyes upon this exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie in him Answ We do in substance own the interpretation to be ours but that all the force of it doth depend upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie in him this we plainly deny Our interpretation is grounded upon the scope of the text For let us suppose the words to be construed in his sence Forasmuch as all have sinned when he hath done all that he can he must come to the interpretation given by us For the drift of the Apostle in the former words is not only to shew that sinne hath past upon all men and death by sin but he speaks of such a passage of sinne and death upon all men out of one man If therefore there be such a general passage of sin and death upon all out of one man then virtually and interpretatively all must sin in one man Againe in the subsequent verses the Apostle saith that the first Adam is the figure of him that is to come If you ask how and wherein we must needs say from the whole series of the text that they are two publick persons and two representatives of the kind By this account then the disobedience of the first man must be virtually the act of all and what he did they did in him and by him So then our interpretation is founded upon the whole scope of the context As for his Critiscismes we will leave them to such who have more leasure to busy themselves about words we will follow him as he goes on in expounding the sense of the Apostle Neverthelesse death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that bad not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that is to come By which discourse it appears that St. Paul doth not speak of all mankind as if the evil occasion by Adams sin did discend for ever upon that account but it had a limited effect and reached onely to those that were in the interval between Adam and Moses Answ But if the matter be well considered there is no such collection to be made from the discourse of the Apostle Indeed he speaketh of the reigne of death over those that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses but shall we argue from thence that the evil occasioned by the fall did discend to them onely and go no further This cannot be for afterwards the Apostle drawing a parallel between both Adams hath these words If through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many Now then if we shall say by the offence of one many be dead and understand this many or multitude in a limited sence namely of such only that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses by this account such a number alone will stand opposite to the many that have life and grace by Christ Nay that which is more the fore-mentioned number might in their time only look to one man the Lord Jesus for recovery out of sin and death and so the Gospel will be delivered to the consolation of such only that lived in the forementioned
interval between Adam and Moses And so we that live in the latter ages of the world shall have nothing to do with the Gospel nor the Gospel with us But of this I have formerly spoken in my answer to Mr. Everard and the Examiners There I have shewed the reason why the Apostle doth mention the reigne of death in the interval between Adam and Moses He goes on This death saith he was brought upon them by Adam that is death which was threatned to Adam only went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners but not after the similitude of Adams transgression that is who sinned not so capitally as be did Answ This expression death threatned only to Adam hath some ambiguity in it If he speaks of Adam as a particnliar person death was not only threatned to him for in the present case he is to be looked upon as the common roote of the nature when he fell all mankind fell in him from him death passed upon all not only as sinners in their own person but in that formality as made sinners or sinful by his disobedience Of infants it is true as well as others in Adam all dye and so death passeth upon all Next he telleth us what it is to sin like Adam To sin like Adam saith he is used as a tragicall and high expression so it is in the Prophet they like men have transgressed so we read it but in the Hebrew it is they like Adam have transgrest and yet death passed upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam Answ For the text in Hosea our English translation may well passe by an Enallage of the number They like man that is like fickle and inconstant men have transgrest my Covenant Or if this will not satisfie that of Tremellius may obtaine Tanquam hominis transgressi sunt faedus They have played fast and loose with me as if it were no other but a meer Covenant of man But let us take the words in the sence that is most propitious to him viz. that the Prophet here looks to Adam as the head of all Apostates and that the Israelites had sinned in as tragical a manner as Adam did what doth he infer from hence he tells us that death reigned from Adam to Moses over those that had not so tragically sinned as Adam had done Truely the old world that was drowned in the flood Sodom and Gomorrah that were burnt with fire the builders of Babel whose language was confounded these and such like sinners though they lived in the interval between Adam and Moses were none of the least But let us take it in his own sence that death reigned over Abel Seth Noah and others that did not sin so capitally as Adam did If this be well considered it doth make more for our purpose than it doth for his For these holy men that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses were under the reigne of death Here I demand how came they to be under this reigne If he will say their own sinne was the principal cause how will he answer the words of the Apostle who expressely tells us by one mans offence death reigned over all ver 17. Againe if he shall say they came under this power by the sinne of Adam then he makes good the interpretation given by us that by the sinne of Adam infants as well as others in all that interval between Adam and Moses came under the power and sovereignty of death He further addeth God saith he was so exasperated with mankind that being angry would still continue that punishment even to lesse sinnes and sinners which he only had first threatned to Adam and so Adam brought it upon them They indeed in rigour did themselves deserve it but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam they who sinned not so bad and had not been so severely and expressely threatned had not suffered so severely Answ By the tenour of the Doctrine we may understand that men by their own sins do deserve death as for the sin of Adam by this account it is only an aggravating circumstance and a cause meerly of the severity of the sentence Now if this be so how shall we expound the meaning of the Apostle By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and death passed upon all men He speaketh of the entrance of sinne of the entrance of death of the entrance of sin and death upon all by the sin and disobedience of one man Is all this only to make Adams sin a meer accessory or aggravating circumstance away with such a conceit The text doth pitch upon it as the principal and general cause of death Againe the Apostle saith by the offence of one death reigned by one If all men fall under the reigne of death by the offence of one then certainly his offence is not the cause alone why they are more severely dealt with but it is the very cause why they fall under the power and dominion of death it selfe Shall we make a circumstance of that which is the principal cause Further what is the reason that infants dye seeing personally and individually they are guilty of no sin of their own to deserve death in his answer to the Bishops letter he doth not shunne to affirme that death comes upon infants meerly by right of dominion But then saith he the evil of punishment may passe further than the action If it passes upon the innocent it is not a punishment to them but an evil inflicted by right of dominion yet by reason of the relation of the offlicted to him that sinned to him it is a punishment But if it passeth upon others that are not innocent then it is a punishment to both to the first principally to the descendants or relatives for the others sake his sinne being impured so far and more he hath to the same purpose pag. 43. Here he plainly delivers his opinion that death is inflicted upon others because they do partake with Adam in his sinne but it descends and comes upon infants meerly by way of prerogative and absolute dominion And if their death be a punishment it is so only to Adam in as much as they stand related to him as being his descendants and relatives Against this I have some things to oppose First in his Vnum necessarium pag. 403. He layeth down this as a sure axiom When Godnsing the power and the dominion of a Lord and the severity of a Judge doth punish posterity it must be so long as the Parents may live and see it and so out of Chrysostome he doth expound it to be to the third and fourth generation and no longer Now here I argue if God punisheth Adam in his infant children this is not to the third and fourth but to the hundreth generation Againe why should he be punished in his infant-children when he hath been dead many hundred nay certaine thousand years agoe