on your own face Dr Taylor I have onely this one thing to adde That the common Discourses of Original Sin makes sin to be natural necessary and unavoidable and then may I not use your own words this Tenet is chargeable with Libeâ—tinism it is a licentious Doctrine and opens a gap to the greatest prophaneness for it takes away all conscience of sin all repentance of it for the time past if sin be natural necessary and unavoidable as it is to us if we derive it from Adam c. what reason hath he to be humbled for it and to ask God pardon for it so that you have done well against your own opinion and if I had not used the argument before I should have had reason to thank you for it now as it is you are further to consider of it not I. Jeanes If you understand by natural that which naturally results from nature and by necessary and unavoidable that which is denominated such from a primitive and created necessity that which you say is a foul slander against the common discourses of Protestants against Original sin But if you mean by natural that which is connexed with and coeval unto our nature and by necessary and unavoidable that which is such in regard of a consequent and contracted necessity it will be nothing to the purpose for you and you may take in to boot your good friends of Racovia are never able to prove that the assertion of such a naturality and necessity of Original sin is any bar to humiliation or repentance for it unto Prayer for the pardon of it Dr Taylor Sir Though I have reason to give you the priority in every thing else yet in civility I have far out-done you Ieanes First You have written a Letter to me without a Superscription and I have returned one unto you with a Superscription and this I take to be of the two the greater civility If I may believe the eccho of the neighborhood you have written several Letters unto Mr. T. C. concerning me that cannot pretend to any great civility for they are said to be stuffed with insulting reproaches unto which I shall return nothing but my Prayers for the increase of your charity and humility Dr. Taylor You were offended at a passage which you might easily but would not understand you have urg'd arguments against me which return upon your own head The Proposition you charge me withall I own not in any of your senses nor as you set it down in any at all and yet your arguments do not substantially or rationally confute it if I had said so Ieanes Here you sum up your Conquests but whether you do not reckon without your Host let the Reader judge Dr. Taylor Besides all this you have used your pleasure upon me you have reviled me slighted me scorned me untempted unprovoked you never sent to me civilly to give you satisfaction in your Objections but talked it my absence and to my prejudice Ieanes Unto all this a general negative is a sufficient answer until I know the Particulars that your Delator hath informed you with but perhaps you may think that for such an obscure person as my self to dare to except against what you write is to revile slight and scorn you if you be so impatient of contradiction I shall leave it unto your own bosom to judge from what spirit it proceeds When you published your Book you exposed it to every mans censure that would read it and will you accuse every man of uncivility that passeth his censure upon any passage in it in a private discourse with friends But Sir upon Mr. C. his entreaty I sent him in writing the reasons that I had for my censure and these reasons were by my consent to be conveyed to you and therefore I sent unto you mediately by another to give satisfaction to my objections If you shall say that 't was uncivil for me not to make my address immediately unto your self it is a charge will easily be wiped off I was as I thought an utter stranger unto you and Mr. C. professed a greet acquaintance with and interest in you and assured me that my Exceptions should be received with all possible candor and promised his diligence and fidelity in conveying of them unto you my objections therefore were sent civilly unto you though sent by him but however you are thus severe the Reader I hope will have a more charitable opinion of my procedure herein and think that you have no reason to make such Tragical Out-crys against me for abusive uncivilities towards you Dr. Taylor Yet I have sent you an answer I hope satisfactory and together with it a long Letter which in the midst of my many affairs and straitned condition is more then I can again afford Jeanes Unto your long Letter I have returned a longer answer and whether yours or mine be satisfactory I am contented to refer it unto the indifferent Reader If your condition be straitned I wish it were more plentiful But my affairs are I believe neither for number nor importance inferior unto yours and from them I have borrowed so much time as to answer you and shall be ready to do so again to perform unto you the like office Dr Taylor And after all this I assure you that I will pray for you and speak such good things of you as I can finde or hear to be in you and profess my self and really be Sir Your affectionate friend and servant in our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Jer Taylor Ieanes For this your promise I give you hearty thanks and shall endeavor to make you as grateful a return as I can in the like Christian offices of love and so shall rest In Christ Jesus your humble servant Henry Jeanes POSTSCRIPT Dr Taylor Sir I received yours late last night and I have returned you this early in the morning that I might in every thing be respective of you Jeanes This I easily believe and am confident that upon review of your Letter you will acknowledge that according to the proverb you have made more haste then good speed Dr. Taylor But I desire not to be troubled with any thing that is not very material for I have business of much greater concernment neither can I draw the saw of contention with any man about things less pertinent I expect no answer I need none I desire none but expect that you will imploy your good parts in any thing rather then in being ingeniosus in alieno libro Your talents can better if you please serve God then by cavilling with or without reason Ieanes Whether or no the controversie between us be not material but less pertinent whether your Letter be so satisfactory as that it needs no answer as also whether I cavill without reason to cavil with reason is a Catachresis as harsh as ratione insanire and as hardly justifiable but by a licentiâ poeticâ are things in which I refuse you for my Judge and appeal unto the learned and unprejudic'd Reader Secondly That you neither expect nor desite an answer from me may be very probable but that I was obliged to return you one I have 3 Reasons that convince me First By my silence the truth which you have wronged would suffer Secondly your Papers have been with a great deal of diligence published and if I should not give them an answer I should be accessary to the Funeral of my own good name And Thirdly A friend of yours when he gave me this your Letter told me That I could not answer it and that you were as he thought infallible now I thought it my duty to undeceive him who having your person in too great an admiration greedily swalloweth whatsoever falls from your pen though never so false and erroneous FINIS
Certaine Letters OF HENRY IEANES Minister of Gods word AT CHEDZOY AND Dr IEREMY TAYLOR Concerning A passage of his in his further Explication of Originall sin OXFORD Printed by HEN HALL for THO ROBINSON 1660. Dr Taylor in his further explication of the doctrine of originall sin pag. 496. THat every man is inclined to evill some more some lesse but all in some instances is very true and it is an effect or condition of nature but no sinne properly 1 because that which is unavoidable is not a sinne 2 because it is accidentall to nature not intrinsecall and essentiall 3 It is superinduc'd to nature and is after it c. To the unprejudiced Reader I shall only give thee a briefe narrative of the occasion of the ensuing letters one Mr T. C. of Bridgwater being at my house brake out into extraordinary that I say not excessive and Hyperbolicall prayses of Dr Ieremy Taylor I expressed my concurrence with him in great part nay I came nothing behind him in the just cōmendations of his admirable wit great parts quick and elegant pen his abilites in Criticall learning and his profound skil in antiquity but notwithstanding all this I professed my dissent from some of his opinions which I judged to be erroneous and I instanced in his doctrine of originall sin now his further explication of this lay then causually in the window as I take it which hereupon I took up and turned unto the passage now under debate and shewed unto Mr T. C. that therein was grosse nonsense and blasphemy he for his own part with a great deale of modesty forthwith declined all further dispute of the businesse but withal he told me that he would If I so pleased give Dr Taylor notice of what I said whereunto I agreed and in a short time he brought me from the Dr a faire and civill invitation to send him my exceptions and with it a promise of a candid reception of them whereupon I drew them up in a letter unto Mr T. C. the Copy whereof followeth Letters of the Authour And Dr IEREMY TAYLOR To Mr T. C. Sir I have here according unto your desire sent you my ecceptions against that passage in Dr Taylor concerning which you discoursed at my house It is in his further explication of the Doctrine of originall sinne page 496 and it is the second argument which he brings to prove that inclination to evill is no sinne properly because it is accidentall to nature not intrinsecall and essentiall The argument put into forme may be reduced into two syllogismes The first Sinne properly is not accidentall to the nature of man An inclination to evill is accidentall to the nature of man therefore An inclination to evill is no sinne properly A second Syllogisme is Sinne properly so called is intrinsecall and essentiall to the nature of man An inclination to evill is not intrinsecall and essentiall to the nature of man therefore An inclination to evill is not sinne properly so called Unto the first of those syllogismes I answer that the major is false and that according to Porphyry his so celebrated definition of an accident Accidens est quod adest abest sine subject◠interitu that is as the best Commentators upon Porphyry expound the words An accident is that which may be affirmed or denied of it's subject without any repugnancy or contradiction to the essence and definition thereof now to deny sinne of man gives no overthrow to his essence and definition for a man that is no sinner may bee animal rationale sinne therefore is accidentall to the nature of man The major of the second syllogisme is no lesse false than that of the first as for the terme intrinsecall I shall not stay upon it because the Dr useth it as equivalent to essentiall as is apparent by the Antithesis he puts between it and accidentall but shall wholy insist upon the word essentiall To say as the Dr doth by consequence that sinne is essentiall to the nature of man is an assertion guilty of nonsenses Blasphemy and libertinisme 1. Nonsence A thing may be said to be essentiall unto an other either à priori and then it is predicated of it in primo modo dicendi per se or else 〈◊〉 posteriori and then it is predicated of it in secundo modo dicendi per se And to say that sinne is either of these wayes essentiall to the nature of man is such pittifull and prodigious nonsence as that I cannot thinke it worthy of any serious refutation In a second place I charge it with Blasphemy it blasphemes three actions three acts of God 1. The creation of man 2. The incarnation of Christ 3. The full glorification of the Saints at the resurrection 1. The creation of man God was the Authour of whatsoever was essentiall unto man And if sinne be essentiall unto the nature of man then God was the Author of sinne 2. The incarnation of Christ in which God made Christ like unto man in essentialls If sinne then be essentiall unto the nature of man God made Christ sinfull a blasphemy that I tremble to mention 3. This opinion blasphemes God's full glorification of the Saints in the resurrection for it affirmes by just consequence that they shall be raised with sinne because doublesse they shall be raised with whatsoever is essentiall to the nature of man In the third and last place this Tenet is chargeable with libertianisme 'T is a licentious doctrine and opens a gap to the greatest profanenesse for it takes away all conscience of sinne all repentance of it for the time past all caution against it for the future If sinne be essentiall to the nature of man what reason hath he to be humbled for it to aske God pardon for it to make any scruple of the committing of it And thus having briefly performed my promise and satisfied your request I shall rest Your affectionate freind and humble servant HENRY JEANES Before the receipt of this Mr T. C. gave an account unto Dr Taylor of what he remembred in our discourse and received from him an answer which he concealed from me untill the delivery of my paper and then he produced it This answer together with my reply thereunto I shall next offer unto thy Consideration To his respected Freind Mr. T. C. these c. Mr. C. I thanke you for your letter and friendly information of Mr Jeanes his exception but if he had been as carefull to understand as he was forward to object and mistake he had eased you and me of this little trouble He objects that I say that enclination to sinne is no sinne because it is accidentall not intrinsecall and essentiall and he gives reasons why such a reason is absurd To all which I returne this soft answer that he sayes true but nothing to the purpose For the thing that I was to prove then was the precedent word that every man is inclined to evill some more
his members warring against the law of his mind vers 23 the body of this death from which be desired to be delivered vers 24 And methinks he should be affraid to ascribe this concupiscence unto Jesus Christ who was the Lambe of God without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.19 holy harmelesse undefiled separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 And thus I have according unto the Doctor 's desire taken notice of his answer and shall not be so hasty as to write any thing against him but that I shall stay a convenient time to heare the uttermost that he can say and when our Paper shall be made publicke unto all the World I doe not doubt but there will be more that will accuse him of incogitancy than me of impertinency Many ingenious and learned men and some that otherwise admire the Dr have made the same construction of his words that I have and thought that he here forgat himselfe I am informed that the Dr in a letter unto you tels you that he desires not to bee troubled with my trifâ—ng Logicke I hope he reviles not Logicke as trifling for then I know in what herd of writers to ranke him and should decline him as an irrationall adversary who is an enemy to the very art of reason But it is not Logicke it selfe I believe but my Logicke that he thus bespatters and if it be so I shall returne nothing unto this his censure but leave you and others his admirers to judge of the humility and ingenuity thereof I have heard that the Dr hath printed a very good Grammar if he will also publish a Logicke for the better information of such triflers as my selfe I doe assure you that I will very diligently peruse it and if it be more solid weighty and serious than those which I have hitherto read give him many thankes for it As for his last letter I have not yet had the leasure fully to peruse it but by that cursory view which I have taken of it I find it to be as empty of reason though fuller of passion as the former you have given it out that it is unanswerable but I shall desire you to have a little patience and if I doe not give it a satisfying answer I shall submit unto what penance you will injoyne me In great hast I rest Your affectionate freind and servant HENRY JEANES Chedzoy August 31. 1657. Mr C. thought that the Doctor 's letter would supersede all further disputation but perceiving that I was unsatisfied and that I intended a replication he conveyed my objections unto the Doctor which begat a very angry letter from him unto which he would not vouchsafe so much as a superscription but I saw the Contents concerned me and therefore unto thee I shall present it together with my answer thereunto submitting both unto thy censure and so shall rest Devoted to thy spirituall service HENRY JEANES Sir I understand by my very good freind Mr T. C that you are very much troubled at a passage in my further explication of originall sin pag 496 The words are these that every man is inclined to evill some more some lesse but all in some instances is very true and it is an effect or condition of nature but no sinne properly The offence you conceive is because one of the reasons I bring to prove it is because it is accidentall to nature not intrinsecall and essentiall upon this you fancy that I intend that all sinne is intrinsecall and essentiall to nature which indeed if I had said I had been as very a sool as you conceive me and worse for besides the reasons you are pleas'd to object which I am no way by this concern'd to examine I had destroyed my maine intention nay that which I was proving in that very place for my worke there was to prove that no sinne is or can be naturall Now then although I know you could easily have understood what I did and must meane there yet because you are pleased not to doe it I will point in out to you To be inclined to evill is an effect or condition of nature but no sinne properly vizt of nature for that is the subject of the Question whether inclination to evill be an effect of nature or an inherent principle of evill a sinne naturall and necessary Now that it is not this I doe suppose that reason which you so misconstrued competent viz It is not a naturall or necessary sinne not a sinne of our nature because it is accidentall to nature not intâ—insicall not essentiall If it be in our nature it must be naturally inseperable it must be at first it must be in all persons that have our nature And this is my meaning and that you may not be troubled at the word essential I meane it not in the strict physicall but in the morall sense that which is not aster our nature but together with it in reall being and I explicate it by intrinsecall I oppose it to accidentall in this reason and to superinduc'd in the next Sir I did give an account to Mr C. in a letter to him which I know was sufficient and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for cujus est loqui ejus est interpretari I told you perfectly what is my meaning it is very plaine by the whole designe of that that it must be my meaning it is also cleare enough an very easy in the expression and therefore I now appeale to your ingenuity whether you ought to have made such tragedies with that which common sense would have made plaine to you unlesse you had received a prejudice And now Sin to your two syllogismes be pleased to the subject of the two majors to adde but this qualification naturall and try if those horrid consequents will follow which you affixed to your own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I shall for this once consider the particulars 1. You charge it with nonsense but with your favour you prove it most pitifully your reason is that to say essentiall is predicated of sin in either of the two wayes dicendi peâ— se is such pitifull and prodigious nonsense that you thinke it not worthy of any serious resutation so that this is your argument to say that sin is essentiall is prodigious and pitifull nonsense g. it is prodigious and pitiful nonsense surely a good argument or thus that which is such nonsense that you thinke not worthy of refutation is certainly nonsense but to say that sinne is essentiall is such nonsense that you thinke not worthy of refute therefore it is nonsense I doe not say your argument is nonsense but I am sure it is no argument unlesse a bold affirmative be a sufficient proofe in your Logicke But to the thing that sinne is essentiall is indeed false to say but to say so is not nonsense And whereas you will suppose me to say so you are uncharitable and something unreasonable in it for I was to prove
some lesse that is that this inclination to evill is not regular and uniforme and therefore not naturall for as for the other clause it is an effect or condition of nature but no sinne properly that was the lesse principall part of the proposition and to it only the first reason was apportion'd viz that which is unavoidable is not a sin But if he had considered the businesse I was then upon be must needs have seene that I was explicating that clause of the Church Article and is inclined to evill which I was to say was an inclination not naturall not intrinsecall not essentiall but accidentall and iâ— this thing I pursue and to this all the other reasons relate to the end of that section and none of them the first only excepted relates to the latter part of the proposition which if I had left out and the reasons relating to it the sense had been as compleat and my argument not the worse and my discourse no lesse pertinent And unlesse he refer the l4 ast reasons that is all after the first to that clause of the variety of our inclination to evill he will not only mistake the second reason but all the rest Besides this if Mr Jeanes had so much ingenuity as he pretends to have Logicke he would have perceived that for me to meane what he sayes I meane had been the perfect destruction of all my discourse and all my intention for if I had sayd that nothing could be a sinne but what is intrinsecall and essentiall then I had affirmed that not only some sinne but all sinne had beene naturall Now my Thesis being that no sin properly such is naturall it cannot be imagined that I should meane what he dreames of it had not been to my purpose either there or in the whole question But all the following reasons do so explicate and fully manifest the meaning of the second that I wonder how Mr Jeanes if he be that person which he would be thought could mistake it unlesse he be also that person he would not be thought I could say many more things but this being the truth of the businesse and the reall purpose of my discourse I need adde no more but one thing I cannot but adde to Mr Jeanes that is since be instances in our B. Saviour he must needs allow that concupiscence taking it for those desires which are purely naturall and concreated with us cannot possibly bee a sinne Because as Mr Jeanes rightly observes whatsoever is naturall to man was in Christ because he had all our meere nature but he had not our sin therefore our meere nature hath no sinne for Christ was in all things like to us sinne only excepted but he took upon him our nature and nothing of that was excepted therefore our nature of it selfe is not properly sinfull nothing of our constitution is criminall Sir I have given you a faire and easie answer I pray let Mr Jeanes have so much conveyed to him as concernes that part to which he objects and if he writes any thing against me let him take notice of this my answer or else all the World shall take notice of his impertinent and uningenious dealing I pray let not this letter goe out of your hand because I have no copy of it if Mr Jeanes should be trouble some But if he be it will be sufficient to acquaint his neighbourhood with my defence for what he sayes shall goe no farther Sir I hope you will expound this trouble I put you to in reading a long letter to my readinesse to doe you service and as a returne of those great kindnesses by which you have obliged London July 4th 1657. Sir Your very affectionate friend to love and serve you JER TAYLOR Postscript I hope I have spoken clearly enough in the explicating and untying this knot in the bulrush but if it be not extreamly plaine for your own satisfaction make but the second part of the proposition to be a Parenthesis thus beginning at and it is an effect c unto 2. and then the thing is extreamely plaine for there the designe was only to say and prove that although man be more or lesse as it happens inclined to sinne yet his nature is never the more criminall for that for it is besides his nature it is accidentall to it not but that it is naturall to be inclined to such objects but that this should be sinfull is but in some cases and it is accidentall and it is because those object were forbidden after our nature was given to us Man is naturally inclined to some things which are not naturally but accidentally sinfull To his Loving friend Mr T. C. these c. Sir I have received Dr Taylor his letter sent unto you bearing date July 4th What designe you had in concealing of it so long from me I cannot guesse But if you had delivered it before I had sent you my objections you would have eased me and Dr Taylor of some trouble for I should then have let alone these objections and have only proved that I did him no wrong in charging him with the conclusions against which these objections were directed to wit that no sinne is accidentall that all sinne is essentiall and intrinsecall Two things he layeth to my charge want of care to understand him and disingenuity 1. Want of care to understand him If he had been he sayth as carefull to understand as he was forward to object and mistakâ— he had eased you and me of this little trouble But if the Dr had been a man of that ingenuity which you fame him for he would have confessed his carelesnesse in expressing of himselfe and not have charged me with want of care to understand that to bee his meaning which I could not understand to bee his meaning without offering violence to his words he propounds two propositions without any thing but a copulative conjunction interposed betweene them And unto the last of these propositions he subjoyneth 6 reasons Now what rule of Logicke obliged me to cary the 5 last of these reasons backwards and to place them between the above mentioned propositions I readily confesse my selfe to be utterly ignorant and shall be very ready to sit downe at the Doctor 's feet and to learne any such rule of him If the Dr must have such liberty allowed him to make such unexampled transpositions he is a very formidable adversary not to be coped with by mortall wights who cannot guesse how he will in an after game sever these reasons that he hath first joyned together Logicke informeth me that secondly signifies a relation of order betwixt it selfe and firstly But now if two reasons be related unto not one but several conclusions I would faine know why one should be the first and the other the second reason Besides here is a first reason that hath no second reason following it relating unto the same conclusion There goeth a story of an