so as that it is confined to a temporal death If this be not the summary drift let the whole book speak but if this make to the Title now give me leave to speak How invective is this Vindicator of the Divine Attributes against the Sublapsarians and yet this I 'll say for them they doe not they dare not include any under the severe Decree of the Divine Justice till they have considered all as born under the lapse and guilt and defection and infection of Original sin Whereas he himself will not have Original sin so much as properly so called neither will he have any to be so considered undeâ— the lapse as really under the guilt or fault yet notwithstanding he will have the Divine Imputation or Decree to descend even upon all for matter of Temporal infliction Now judge whether of these two Sentences or Executions can more prejudice or impeach the Divine attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness c. viz. That of Gods imputing the whole and utter punishment unto some together with the real imputation of the sin or that of Gods imputing but part of the punishment even unto All and that without any real imputaon of the sin at all Certainly the Divine Justice is made to labour more under this charge for punishing all though but Temporally where he takes none to be faulty than it can under that for punishing but some although eternally where it finds all guilty Thus forcing at his own aim and yet forgetting the mark prefixed he miserably impinges upon the same Rock himself which he would insimulate others for to dash upon Would he verily and indeed have vindicated the glory of the Divine attributes in the question of Original sin he should not have proposed to do it only against the Presbyterian way of understanding it who had they no more disturbed the wholsom Discipline of the Church of England than they have of late directly publiquely and with one consent opposed her in her sound Doctrine she had never been thus widowed to such disorder and distress but might have sat still a Queen of Reformed Churches flourishing in her Peace and Truth Neither will they all yield that their way of understanding it should ever be pointed out for a way a part or singular from the Church of England and other Reformed Churches but he should rather have taken such a kind of Vindication in hand against the Pelagian the Manichaean the Samosatenean the Socinian the Pontifician the Pighian the Flaccian the Arminian the Supralapsarian yea the Judaical the Philosophical the Scholastical the Synergistical and the Anabaptistical way of understanding it all which Hereticks and Sectaries have here would a man goe about to make an exact Catalogue or Computation in more than sixteen times sixteen famous that is infamous questions opinions errors trench'd too palpably and grosly upon the glory of the Divine attributes indeed As be pleased to take here a taste What but their own way of understanding it caused the Jews to run into some error about Orignal sin as that some are born in sin and others not again that some are wholly so born and others but in part else how is it they say Thou wast altogether born in sin Ioh. 9. 34. objecting this scornfully to another in an Exemption of and difference to themselves and again That a Typical a legal or an external Covenant was sufficient to free them from it without the truth of Christ and his Gospel of Grace otherwise why said they within themselves We have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3. 9. and boasted before others We be Abrahams seed we be not born of Fornication Ioh. 8. 33 41. and why doth Christ in convincing them bring them to the Original of sin Ye are of your Father the Devil and the lusts of your Father ye will doe for he was a Murtherer from the beginning c. v. 44. if Original sin was not here intended What but their way of understanding it induced the Heathen Philosophers some to extol Nature as a noble Mother and simply vertuous some to depress her as an obscure step-dame and absolutely vitious Some to lament at the immerited evils of birth some to laugh that it should be thought a man could be born with any vice or crime about him for this was part of that which unto the Greeks seemed foolishness 1 Corinth 1. 23. That one should be saved by another mans merits that one should be just with another mans righteousness that one should suffer and satisfie for another mans offences and that one should be accounted wicked for another mans sins And in very deed the Greeks seeking after wisdom or men curiously Philosophizing and labouring in the Objections and answers of natural reason hath been the main thing that hath invented and maintained all the opinions and errors about Original sin Neither in truth is this natural reasoning of men any other than every mans own way of understanding it But let us goe on to take further notice of what notorious errors or heresies rather that have been not only broached but stifly maintained thereby scilicet that Original sin name and thing is nothing That no sin from Adam passes upon Men either at their conception or at their birth neither so much as imputed to posterity that Adams sin hurt none but himself and that Infants are born in the same state Adam was in before his praevarication That no man is lyable to damnation because of Adams sin That Adams sin passes no other way upon his Posterity but by example or imitation only That Original sin is not remitted to Infants by Baptism because there is no such thing in them so the Pelagians and Coelestians That sins both Original and actual were created by an evil Principle that is an evil God That no sin is caused by Free will but by the evil Principle aforesaid That sin is the very nature and substance of Man That some were so born in sin that Christ could not save them so the Manichees That Original sin is in no sort to be ascribed unto Man but either to God or else to the Devil so the Hermogenians and Valentinians That Original sin is the least of all sins That it is in the Body and not in the Soul or that it is in the inferiour faculties of the Soul only and not in the superiour That Original sin is called sin equivocally abusively figuratively or by a Metonymie either as the Cause of sin or as caused by sin That after Baptism it is no real viciosity but only a penalty That the whole and all of it is not only not imputed and remitted but quite taken away and blotted out by Baptism That Concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That there is no Law against the loss of Original righteousness That notwithstanding the worst of Original sin there will remain in us much both moral civil pious and Spiritual good That it is only a guilt binding over to
much as he neither do we look that our sin in him should by him be lessened to us but by Christ only both to him and to us all 2. Now for the Consequents of this Paraphrase THe consequent of this discourse he says must needs be this at least If it be consequent to his discourse so but it stands us in hand to examine whether it be consequent to the Apostles words but since he will needs impose them on us as Consequences he will not be angry if I take them up as Inconsequences For whether so or so I refer them Sir both to yours and every able and indifferent mans judgement Conseq. That it is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the eterternal bonds of Hell by Adam Inconsequ nothing is impossible with God nothing is impossible that is justly done and past we say not only the greatest part but the whole race of mankind was so left and yet all that aggravates it not to an impossibility For why should it be thought an impossibility That all by Adam should be left in the eternal bonds of Hell since all in Adam had a possibility to be brought to the eternal Throne of Heaven Conseq. For then quite contrary to the discourse of the Apostle there had been abundance of Sin but a scarcity of Grace and the excesse had been on the part of Adam not on the part of Christ Inconseq The abundance or excess which the Apostle here contends for is not with respect to numbers or to multitudes of persons on either part but in regard to Grace abounding Sin and Life excelling Death and Christs merits infinitely exceeding both Adams and our own deserts Conseq. So that the Presbyterian way is perfectly condemned by this discourse of the Apostle Inconseq Though he tell them never so often yet they will hardly beleeve him on his own word till he can convince them from the Apostles words perfectly and indeed Conseq. Nay and yet more particularly convince them when their way of understanding in this point is singular from the Church of England or other reformed Churches Suffrage the other mâ—re gentle way which affirms that we were sentenc'd in Adam to eternal death though the Execution is taken off by Christ is also no way countenanced by any thing in this Chapter Inconseq No these words death passed death reigned the judgement was to condemnation these I say countenance and confirm the sentence Again the Free gift came to justification of life they shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ these countenance and confirm the taking off the Execution were it not thus both for the sentence and for the Execution where then were all those excesses on Christs part what excesse were it to make those righteous that were not made Sinners before what excess were it to justifie those to eternal life that were never condemned to eternal death let him look to it either Christ must be preferred in these Acts and Excesses or else his Attributes are but impaired Conseq. That the judgement which came from Adams sin unto the condemnation of the world was nothing but temporal Death is here affirmed In conseq so far is it from being affirmed that upon right deduction it is more than once denied For it was Death entring by Sin and that was something more than temporal death It was Death reigning and that was something more than death temporal It was death opposed to the justification of life and that must be something more than temporal death It was death opposed to reigning in life and therefore must needs be more than temporal death Conseq. It is in no sence imaginable that the death which here St. Paul says passed upon all men and which reigned from Adam to Moses should be eternal Death Inconseq Will he allow no man a sensible imagination besides his own understanding or rather a sensible understanding besides his own imagination Death passed upon all men that is eternal death passed upon all men according to the justice of the sentence and their due desert There 's one sense That Death which reigned from Adam to Moses was eternal death for if you take the time of Deaths reigning to be betwixt them two terminally and exclusively then was it not so much as a tempotal death passing upon all men But death reigns not but from an eternal Law and in and to eternity There 's another sense yea Death reigned from Adam to Moses and so onward until Christ and would have reigned eternally over all men had not Christ taken it off There 's another sense Conseq. the Apostle speaks of that death which was threatned to Adam Inconseq rather of the death which was threatned to the world in Adam but take it as directed to Adams person dying thou shalt die Gen. 2. 17. The sacred idiom serves to note the continuity as well as the certainty of Death and that was an intimation of the eternity Conseq. The Apostle means such a Death which was afterwards threatned In Moses Law Inconseq well but who takes a temporal death only nay who takes not an eternal death chiefly to be threatned upon the breach of the Morral Law Conseq. and such a death which fell even upon the most righteous of Adams posterity Inconseq True it fell upon them in part not that the other part was not due unto them but that it was taken off by Christ Conseq. Upon the most righteous of Adam's posterity who did not sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression Inconseq Such righteous ones of all his posterity were never yet known Abel Seth and Methusala were certainly none such for they and their like even all the holy Patriarks were sinners as well by imitation as by propagation and sinned as well actually as originally To say that those holy men sin not after the similitude of Adams transgression in that they sinned less alas that 's but poor for so even wicked men are said not to sin after the similitude of one another Conseq. Because in proportion to the evil so was the imputation of the Sin it follows That Adam's sin is ours metonimycally and improperly Inconseq Here 's nothing at all which follows aright for even the first part of his argument is preposterous By evil he intends punishment and then the consequence is quite contrary because the sin was not imputed in proportion to the punishment but indeed the punishment was deputed in proportion to the Sin And therefore it must follow by reason of contraries That Adams sin was not tropically and tralatitiously but even litterally and properly ours But consider what he says in effect That God did measure the sin according to the punishment Now good Lord how can the Divine Attributes stand safe to such a saying for what Justice is that that regulates or proportions the sin by the punishment and not the punishment by the Sin In the imputation of God or men who makes the sin
Man can doe a Child can doe What God is able to doe c. the Devil is able to doe c. Whereas our manner of arguing is not in matter of power and prevalency but for matter of being and reallity Now betwixt the greater and the lesse though there may be a disproportionate action yet there must be some proportionate being And what is affirmed of the greater may likewise be affirmed of the lesser and that in the same kind and manner although not according to the same measure or degree yea very Opposites and and Disparates if they come to be compared are accepted as opposite and different only in their proper forms and adjuncts but alike and agreeing in their common Attributes according to which they are compared and without which there could be no ground for comparison And where there is no ground for Collation there can be no cause for prelation as here in the Apostles worlds Take away the reallity of Sin and the Proper being of the offence and in such a comparison with what excesse or excellency can the Grace the Free-gift Iustification and the righteousnesse of Christ be preferred thereunto There 's nothing now remaining but to put it into an Hypothetical Syllogism and so to leave it concluding without all Fallacy according to his own condition viz. If we be made really righteous by Christ then we were made really Sinners by Adam But we are made really righteous by Christ Ergo And thus worthy Sir though I cannot presume my self to be one of those wise persons he speaks of yet this I presume that I am not unwarily perswaded by this way of arguing neither can I out of my simplicity observe that it is this way but rather his own whole way of arguing that appears unconcluding But let it be with your own judgement how we either of us appear to you from what we have said 2. For the Church TO this objection That his Doctrine is against the 9th Article in the Church of England He saith I have already answered it in some additional Papers which are already published I would I might have had the opportunity to have seen them supposing they may contain some kind of Apologie which might have saved me the labour of an Additional in this latter part But for what I here see he must give me leave for to speak as that he may see That in judgement though not in Charity we are Two His zeal for the Church of England seems to be such and so much that he is protesting before hand against all that shall but seem to suspect it But he is indigning him in especial that shall take upon him to tax him for it in the least degree I hope this will not overprovoke his patience only to intreat him First to reconcile his own understanding to his subscription and then his own words to the words of the Article First A faithfull subscription of a dutifull Son of the Church is to submit his understanding and consent simply unto her suffrage And to under-write with hand and heart her Articles and Canons accepted in their plain literal sense And not to bring to them nor yet reserve from them any other understanding or intention of his own Laws we say are to be interpreted and accepted according to the mind of the Law-givers and a promissary Oath ought to be performed according to the intention of him to whom the promise is made Now for him to say I have oftentimes subscribed that Article and I am ready a thousand times to subscribe that Article and yet to say again I doe not understand the words of that Article as most men doe but I understand them as they can be true and as they can very fairly signifie and as they agree with the word of God and right reason What kind of subscription call you this with such a liberty or reservation a man might have without all scruple taken the Protestation the Covenant the Engagement or an Oath of Abjuration But whom means he by those most men certainly not the Adversaries of the Church who refuse to subscribe them But the Sons of the Church his brethren who have subscribed them as well as he The Adversaries though they consent for the most part to the Doctrine yet they refuse to subscribe the Article meerly because it is our Churches But as it is the Churches so we that are Sons and Brethren doe with one understanding simply subscribe it nor doe we make our own conditions by way of exception but we take them all in an undoubted concession For we also understand the words of the Article as they can be true and as they can fairly signifie and that is even in their literal and grammatical sense And likewise as they agree with the Word of God and right reason for so we suppose them in the sense aforesaid And although we confesse with him that the Church used an incomparable wisdom and temper in composing her Articles both with respect to New-reformists and Non-conformists too notwithstanding we believe her Prudence and Piety was such that she intended not so to secure the outward Peace of the Church against either as that the Truth of it in either part might be prejudiced thereby much less that she contrived any thing in such a charitable latitude as to give license to any for passing the rectitude and arctitude of Verity or that any one should presume upon his private and dissentaneous opinion notwithstanding her publique and unanimous Judgement It was discovered by some of themselves that when the Councel of Trent compleated her Canons of Original Sin and many particulars of them appearing so consonant to the Scriptures and to Orthodox Antiquity yet they studied to compile the whole with such Artifice as that notwithstanding they might leave to their own Scholasticks a liberty of disputing and opining what they pleased But I trust the like shall never be said of the Church of England either as touching this or any other of her Articles and for my part I conceive it to be a truer part of a Son of the Church rather to restrain his sense to her words than to strain or enlarge her words to his own sense Secondly As concerning this Article of Original birth or Sin or Birth-Sin in as much as he says if I had cause to dissent from it I would certainly doe it in those just measures which my duty on the one side and the interest of truth on the other would require of me Hereupon I am very willing to beleeve him on his own word as liking exceeding well of his ingenious Confession I have no cause to disagree and not much misliking his resolution I will not suffer my self to be supposed to be of a differing judgement from my dear Mother which is the best Church of the world Wherefore I shall doe no more which is the least that can be done in an appearing difference but set down the
Sapientia Iustificata OR A Vindication of the fifth Chapter to the ROMANS And therein of the Glory of the Divine Attributes and that in the Question or Case of Original Sin against any way of Erroneous understanding it whether old or new More especially an Answer to Dr. Ieremy Taylors DEUS IUSTIFICATUS By Iohn Gaule Minister of great Staughton in the County of Huntingdon LONDON Printed for N. Paris and Tho. Dring and are to be sold at the George in Little Brittain and at the George in Fleetstreet near St. Dunstans Church 1657. DIcitis nos asserendo Peccatum original◠Deum crimine iniquitatis arguere Nos ergo dicimus nec iniquus est Deus cum peccatis sive originalibus sive propriis digna retribuit magisque aut iniquus aut infirmus ostenditur si jugum grave super filios Adam à die sicut scriptum est nativitatis eorum usque in diem sepulturae in matre omnium sub quo jugo Imago eju atteritur aut ipse nullo originali vel pro prio precedente peccato aut quilibet aliu ipso imponit invito Deus autem justus s◠tanta parvulis mala quanta nunc dicere non sufficio nihil peccati trahentibus irrogerat magis appareret injustus Aug◠cont. Julian Pelagian lib. X. To his much honoured and most worthy Friend IOHN BALDVVIN Esquire Noble Sir HOw oft how much in our serious discourses upon more than one of this Authors works have we honoured him for his learning affected him for his piety admired him for his industry applauded him for his eloquence and condoling him pitied his sufferings among many other godly and learned men his like and thereupon it was that we studiously laboured not so much to reconcile within our selves many a particular phrase and passage dispersed here and there seeming not only to be borrowed from but as bordering too much upon the expressions if not opinions of the Inorthodox but rather to salve them up to others understandings who began to take more scandal at them than we our selves did and this we endeavoured in a candid interpretation of his intention as one who meant only to make use of the Adversaries manner of speaking to no other purpose but to cause I say not his but their forms and affectations to speak as near as possibly could be to the tenor of the Orthodox Truth and Faith in general and to that of the Church of England in more especial But truly Sir this little piece of his which you were lately pleased to send me puts me utterly to a loss and sets me so quite beyond the seeking for an excuse that it forces me altogether to fall upon a dissent I could heartily have wish'd that instead of answering his Friends learned Friends objection he would rather have sate down by their advice For were the thing that he principally aims at true yet was it not so necessary to be brought to light especially not under the notion of a charge or challenge For he may well assure himself all the reformed Divines men Orthodox and moderate both for Doctrine and Discipline cannot chose but take themselves stricken at through the Presbyterians sides And therefore notwithstanding he entitles it Deus justificatus against them only yet I am much afraid he will not therein prove Homo justificandus neither in their judgement nor of many others and they his friends and fellow workers and fellow-sufferers too whether more or less made known unto him And now judicious Sir though your own judgement both in Divinity and for other good learning be such as come short to few of your quality and so well known as I need not speak to the Gentlemen of your Countrey and others yet forasmuch as I am your Minister I know you expect my mind for therefore I received it at your hand And verily I shall by Gods Grace dissemble it neither with him nor you yet I would have both him and you think I dare not presume to propound any thing here upon my own mind alone but as I am enabled to goe along with the Scriptures and the Church of God Because it is a hard matter in such a hard point as this of Original Sin for a man to goe alone and not to erre Neverthelesse I know through the gift of God a man may be enabled and enlarged to speak newer and clearer but then he must be sure that his ground for the Point be old and good For it is a Fanaticism for any man to conceit that God concealed such a main Principle of his Truth from his whole Church till now that he revealed it to himself alone A VINDICATION OF THE Fifth Chapter TO THE ROMANS FIrst let me begin with his Title and his Scope compare them both together that so we may see how answerable they are each to other For let me tell you Sir and you shall observe it in all the ridiculous sensless fanatical factious heretical and blasphemous Pamphlets of these our evil days that fair Titles are taken up only to palliate false and foul intents neither is there any shorter or surer way of refuting an Error than in searching directly how all the intended scribbling agrees little or nothing with the pretended superscription For let truths be spoken yet they are not so there unless they be according to the main purpose to which they are intituled This Authors Title or superscription is Deus justificatus now I pray God it prove so the whole work throughout For I greatly suspect that the main intention of this discourse will but work to frustrate the title that is given to it because I perceive his principal Scope and Conclusion is to make Original sin to be a sin so called by a Metonymie only for he very often denies it to be a sin properly really formally and inherently and contends mainly to have it no more but a Metonymical Imputation to certain purposes which are very involved words and are so studiously covert as if he were afraid or ashamed to speak plainly outright But this is as much as to say That where Original sin is called sin it is not so literally and properly but only is called so by a figurative form of locution by a Metonymie of the cause for the effect namely sin put only for the punishment of sin and the imputation of this sin by God is no more but the infliction of the punishment And this punishment is with limitation to certain purposes and those purposes are no further but to Temporal misery and Death Gather all these together and you shall so come to plain speaking viz. That Original sin is no such thing but hath only the name or appellation of sin in a translated sense but directly it is either no sin or anothers and not ours And therefore the Divine imputation is not of the guilt and corruption to us but all is an infliction only of the punishment and suffering on us yet
punishment but no fault of sin properly defiling so the Pontificians and especially their Scholasticks That it is neither defection depravation corruption nor truly and properly a Sin but only an affliction or punishment descending upon posterity through the guilt of Adams transgression like as to be born a Slave or a Bastard is his shame only and not his sin That nothing was born in us and with us which was not good and the very work of God That Adams disobedience was in no wise ours neither were we therefore in any wise obnoxious to eternal death so the Pighians and the Catharinians That we become infected by Original sin not by way of Generation or Propagation but only by way of imitation and outward occasion That the death of the body is the sequel of Nature and no punishment for sin whether original or actual so the Socinians and Racovians That Original sin is not a vicious accident or adjunct but is become our very Nature Essence and Substance the very heart and flesh and body and soul so the Flaccians and Substantialists That a mans meer pure naturals notwithstanding the Fall are good and perfect That Original sin is but like a little spot upon the skin or light wound for all which there remain still in a man his natural capacities dispositions powers and forces to Good That Men from their Mothers womb are as fully endowed with Liberty and Freewill as Adam was before his fall That Original sin to a man's Freewill is but like Garlick to a Loadstone easily wipt off and so it falls to work as fresh as at the first That the Adamical will or will from Adams fall hath it self not merely passive in the act of Conversion but is thereunto actively cooperating together with God so the Erasmians the Sunergicts and Arminians That Original sin was but St. Augustins dream and Puppet That Infants under the New Testament are not born in Original sin That there 's no necessity to baptize Infants with respect to any benefit they thus can have against it That Original sin and all other is to be remedied only by revelations and raptures of the Spirit without any use either of Word or Sacraments so the Swenckfeldians the Enthousiasts Anabaptists Fanaticks and Familists That Original sin is not properly a sin but a Disease or a Condition or else figurative form of speaking viz. by a Metonymie may be so called so Zwinglius and some of the Zwinglians That God reprobates God damns men absolutely because it is his will and pleasure without any respect or condition whether of Original or Actual sin so the Supralapsarians Thus you see Sir what a crowd of Errors have obtruded only through mens leaning to their own understandings amongst which more than once this Author may find his own which to me at first view seems so like to diverse of the aforesaid Errors that taken up in strict syllables I begin to suspect it would not only appear so but appear so and much more But I look not upon him in a likenesse to them but in some unlikenesse to the Holy Scriptures and the Church of England taking his way of understanding it to be another both to what the first teaches to understand and in what the last would be understood And let him not think I speak this as one that would revile him but as one that according to his understanding must dissent from him using my liberty which I wish may be mutual but keeping my Charity nevertheless my understanding I doe faithfully and in all humility submit to those two witnesses neither will I oppose him in any thing but what I receive from them they that will undertake him in other passages that fall not directly within this compass let them do it as they shall find themselves concerned in it or called to it This I take to be the safest way to begin and if he will keep his own word the readiest way to make an end For taking the 5 Chapter to the Romans to be objected against him If it be so saies he I have done if it be not so say I I have nothing to do Let me be beleeved both by him and you in this I have look'd again and again upon his Paraphrase with a single eye only to find out truth and proper truth if there explained hoping he will doe likewise with this Exposition when it shall come to his sight In which I make his own words mine if I use any violence I can easily be reproved For the Scripture Rom. 5. 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Wherefore therefore for this cause I begin with the search and examination of the letter for it is the Grammatical sifting that must render the plain Construction and then the Rhetorical glossing may come in to adorn with a certain circumlocution and therefore a broad Paraphrase if it be not unsuitable yet it is untimely when it shall presume in place before a narrower Exposition have done its part For this canse so I am bold to render it because I find it mostly so rendred in this Epistle to the Romans chap. 1. 26. and 13. 6. and 15. 9. which very inference serves to shew plainly the principal reason or cause why it pleased God to permit the Entrance and Passage of Original Sin viz. For this cause even for the reconciliation and attonements sake immediately before spoken of vers 10. and 11. Therefore God suffered this sin to enter into the world The Enmity or hainous aversion the wrath or dreadfull desert of Original Sin can never be more truly and fully considered and measured than in and by Christs death and satisfaction which who so contends to lessen either for Fault or Guilt such endeavours to extenuate the vertue and merits of Christs reconciling and attoning Gods great end in the Fall was to manifest and magnifie the infinite perfection of his own Son who then would not labour earnestly that Wisdom might principally be justified in the point Doth not God herein commend his love towards us vers. 8. How then can we imagin there should be the least prejudice upon the Divine Attributes in such an Ordination or Permission upon such a motive or intention But was this inferential motive heedlesly escaped or not rather purposely pretermitted to usurp a more uncontrouled licence in the wanton daliances of words that I may not call them petulancies of prophanation It is no reputation to a Phisician to say he hath cured us of an Evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that his Son may have the honour to have cured us I understand not that he that makes a necessity that he may find a remedy is like c. The sufficiency and excellency of our Saviour in