Adam in that he was the 〈◊〉 of mankind was a kind of universal cause and so by his corrupt act all mankind was corrupted Vse Of Instruction That nothing more is requisite on our part to be partaker of Adam's sinne and to be made unclean but natural generation and descent from Adam It 's true there is on Gods part also a Covenant and his imputation otherwise Adam's sinne would not have been ours no more than other parents but on our parts there is no other way of conveying it but by natural descent from him whereas to be in Christ and to partake of his divine benefit there is required a supernatural work upon us a spiritual insition and incorporation of us into Christ but to be a sinner in Adam our very being born in a natural way before we are able to know or will any thing or to discern the right hand from the left is enough to intitle us to it Oh then with what shame sorrow and holy confusion of face should we think of this our natural uncleanness How vile and loathsom should we be in our eyes Oh the distance and contrariety that is between so holy and pure a God and thou an impure and unclean wretch If our righteousnesses are menstruous rags how abominable then is our real iniquity CHAP. XI A Fourth Text to prove Original Sinne opened and vindicated SECT I. PSAL. 51. 5. Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceive me THe sad occasion of this Psalm is plainly set forth in the Inscription David a godly man after Gods own heart a Prophet a King who had been exercised under several afflictions yet when arrived to peace plenty and ease fals into those foul sinnes of Adultery and Murder which later was contrived with much deliberation subtilty and bloodiness Yet after some security in this sinne being admonished and awakened by Nathan he repents and bitterly bewaileth these transgressions So that in this Psalm is described a form for every Prodigal repenting and coming home to his Father That David was only in a Lethargy or Apoplexy not quite dead that the seed of grace was not wholly extinct in him is sufficiently proved against the Arminians by the Orthodox though they deride saying The Calvinists Elect persons The Albae Gallinae filii They may do any thing commit any sinne and nothing will hurt them But this is to mock and scorn at that special Covenant of Grace in Christ made to those who are given to him by the Father and indeed such present meltings and remorse of soul upon Nathan's admonition without any rage malice or fury at the Prophet who rebuked him intimate That the seed of grace was not quite overcome within him For the Psalm it self that is Supplicatory wherein David wrestleth in agonies with God for to obtain mercy using several Arguments One from the Mercy yea the multitude of mercy that is in God Another is from the confession and deep sense of sinne in his soul he acknowledgeth it and it is alwayes before him he never puts it out of his memory Whither soever he goeth and whatsoever he is doing still his sinnes are as it were so many Devils appearing in horrid shapes before his eyes A third Argument is in the Text from the aggravation of those actual sinnes he committed They were not sinnes to be considered meerly in themselves but from the cause and root whence they sprang even the defiled and corrupt nature that was in him it being not so much those actual though so horrid sinnes that made him so guilty as that they did flow from such a defiled fountain within him Thus he aggravateth those actual sinnes from the root and cause within him For although he was regenerated and so delivered from the dominion of original corruption yet it was with him as with Paul The Law of sinne did still warre within him against what was good sinne dwelt in him still and was apt upon all occasions like a Dalilah to betray him into the hand of the Philistims into the power of some soul transgressions It is true some have thought that David speaks this to extenuate and lessen his sinne as if his meaning had been Lord it 's true I have committed these foul sinnes in thy sight but they are the more venial and pardonable because my nature is corrupt It is no wonder that being not an Angel or a man in integrity as Adam or confirmed in grace as the glorified Saints in Heaven but the son of corrupted Adam that I have thus tumbled into the mire And it cannot be denied but that this truth of our original corruption may be pleaded both for aggravation to punish and also for pity to spare Hence Gen. 6. 5. Because every imagination of mans heart was only evil and that continually therefore God was provoked to destroy the world by water yet Chap. 8. 21. the very same thing viz. because a mans heart is evil from his youth is made a reason why God will not smite the earth again with such an universal destruction But it seemeth farre more genuine and consonant to David's scope in this Psalm to make these words by way of aggravation for David is humbling and debasing of himself desirous to justifie and clear God and therefore he layeth himself as low as possibly he can digging into the very bottom of all that evil which cleaveth to him In the words therefore we may take notice of the matter confessed and acknowledged with the introductory particle to make it more considerable It is not an ordinary or slighty thing he is to speak of and therefore he begins with that note Behold This Ecce may be called the Asterisk of the holy Ghost or the Bibles nota benè It is commonly used either for Attention or Admiration or Caution and it may have this three fold use here For Attention the matter being of so great concernment so little minded or believed by most men for David doth not speak here as if it were his particular case alone as if none were born in iniquity but him yea rather it followeth if David though so eminent and godly so blessed by God was yet born in sinne then no doubt but all others are likewise Again It may be a note of Admiration because of the mysterious depth of this original defilement It is unsearchable and the more he considers of it the more amazed and astonished he is even as David at another time Psal 19. crieth out Who can understand his errors when he hath set himself with his whole might to sathom all the evil that is in him yet he cannot do it Hence Jeremiah Chap. 17. speaking of this deceitfull and desperate heart of man because of the native pollution of it saith Who can know it And then answers It 's God alone that searcheth it God knoweth the depth of all that evil which no man can reach unto Lastly It may be a note of Caution
up against it makes him rage at it as the Apostle doth abundantly testifie in this Chapter he tels us This Law of sinne did warre and fight against the Law of God it did lead him captive it conquered and subdued him against his will If then a godly man find this Law of sinne so powerfull and operative in him No wonder if men wholly carnal and natural they finde the Law of sinne as fully prevailing over them as the Devils did on the herd of Swine which they hurried violently into the sea without any resistance As then the Devil when he possessed some bodies provoked and moved them to many violent and sudden actions which they could not gainsay Thus doth the Law of sinne in men naturally it provoketh it instigateth it turneth the soul upside down it is continually pressing and enclining to evil which makes the Scripture say Gen. 6. That the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart is only evil and that continually Thirdly Original sinne is a Law because by this a man is bound and captivated to the lusts thereof there is an indissoluble union till death Thus the Apostle argueth from the Law of an Husband and his Wife she cannot marry another while her Husband lives Neither can we be married to Christ while this is predominant yea we must die ere we be wholly freed of it Fourthly Original sinne is called a Law of sinne within us because of the injurious command and rule it hath in every man by nature And this indeed is the most explicite and formal reason why it is called a Law for to a Law there is not onely required a directive power for so counsels and admonitions have which are no Laws but there must be also a preceptive and commanding power so that a Law hath vim coactivum a compelling force to have a thing done and in this respect the Apostle gives it this Title of a Law of sinne within us for even in the person of a regenerate man What sad complaints doth he make of this tyrannical power of sinne within him He is not his own man he cannot do what he would yea he doth what he would not insomuch that he cals himself carnal and sold under sinne These expressions are so great that therefore some have thought they could not be applied to a godly man For it is said of Ahab as a sure Character of his wickednesse That he sold himself to do evil 1 Kings 21. 20. but Ahab did that willingly Paul is here passive he is sold against his will because sinne hath such tyranny over him Therefore the afflicted Israelite did not more groan to be delivered from his oppression than Paul crieth out to be delivered from this body of sinne Well therefore may this birth-pollution be called The Law of sinne within us for it ruleth all it commands the whole man what sinne bids us think we think what it bids us do we do No natural man can do othewise The Apostle speaks peremptorily They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8. 7 8. And the carnal minde is not subject to God neithe indeed can be Oh the miserable and unhappy estate we are all then in by this original sinne We cannot but sinne we do not love that which is good neither can we The Law of sinne hath wholly enslaved us Though all the curses of the Law be denounced against us yet we cannot but sinne As venemous creatures cannot vent that which is sweet but necessarily that which is poison yet as Bernard of old said well This necessity in sinning doth not take off from voluntarinesse and delight in it neither doth the delight take off from the necessity Lastly It may be called The Law of sinne saith Aquinas Because it 's that effect of Gods penal Law inflicted upon mankind because of Adam's transgression So that upon Adam 's sinne God hath so ordered that it should be by way of a punishment upon us to be prone unto all evil For as you heard this original sinne is both a sinne and a punishment So that as God hath appointed that every man should die it is a Law that shall never be repealed so likewise that every one born of man in a natural way should be unclean and have a fountain within him daily emptying it self into poisonous streams Vse To be informed whence it is that thy heart is so out of all measure evil whence it is that no godly thing is pleasing to thee whence it is that upon searching into thy heart thou findest a noisom dunghill there that thou art never able to go to the bottom whence it is that lust is so ready at hand alwayes that sinne alwayes appeareth first in thy soul All this is because original corruption is by way of a Law in thee That teacheth to sinne that instigateth to sinne yea that commands and imperiously puts thee on to all manner of evil If you do not feel this heavy thraldome and pressure upon you it is not because it is not there but because thou art dead in sin and hast no feeling of it Solemon speaking of a good woman hath this notable expression Prov. 31. 26. The Law of kindnesse is in her lips The Law of kindnesse she cannot but be loving and friendly in all she saith Now on the contrary The Law of sinne is all over thee The Law of sinne is in thy heart the Law of sinne is in thy mind the Law of sinne is in thy eyes in thy tongue thou canst not but sinne in and by these CHAP. III. Of the Name The Sinne that dwelleth in us given to Original Sinne. SECT I. Of the Combate between the Flesh and Spirit ROM 7. 17. Now then it is no more I that do it but sinne that dwelleth in me THis excellent Chapter which containeth the heart and life of the Doctrine of Original Sinne so that it may be called the Divine Map thereof describing all the parts and extents of it will afford us many testimonies for the confirmation of it We therefore proceed to another name that we find here described to us in this Text viz. The sinne that dwelleth in us The Apostle you heard as we take for granted doth here speak in his own person and so of every regenerate man that there is a conflict and a combate between the flesh and the Spirit In all such there are two Twins strugling in the womb of the soul which causeth much grief and trouble of heart which the Apostle doth in a most palpable and experimental manner relate in this passage vers 15. That which I do I allow not for what I would that I do not but what I hate that I do Now you must understand this aright lest it prove a stumbling blâ—ck For First The Apostle speaks not this as a man meerly convinced but yet carried away with strong corruptions This is not to patrocinate those who live in sinnes against their conscience but have some
its nature If you look upon a Cain a Judas though his outside be so detestable yet his inwards are much more abominable so that a mans heart is like Peters great sheet which he saw in a vision Acts 11. 6. which was full of four-footed beasts and wild beasts and creeping things all unclean such a receptacle is mans soul of all impiety A man cannot tell what is in the sea what monsters are in the bottom of it by looking upon the superficies of the water which covers it so neither canst thou tell all that horrid deformity and wretchedness which is in thy heart by beholding thine outward impieties Oh then that you would turn your eyes inward as it were an introversion is necessary Then you will say O Lord before I knew the Nature of original sinne I was not perswaded of my vileness of my foulness Oh now I see that I am beyond all expression sinfull now I see every day I am more and more abominable O Lord formerly I thought all my sinne was in some words in some actions or in some vile thoughts but now I see this was the least part of all that evil that was in me Now I am amazed astonished to see what a sea of corruption is within me now I can never go to the bottom now I find something like hell within me sparks of lust that are unquenchable Fourthly Where there is not a true knowledge of this native corruption there our Humiliation and Repentance can never be deep enough for it 's not enough to be humbled for our actual sinnes unless also we go to the cause and root of all When a godly man would repent of his lusts of his unbelief or any other actual transgression he stayeth not in the confession of and bewailing those particular sins but he goeth to the polluted fountain to the bitter spring from whence those bitter streams flow and commonly this is a difference between an Ahabs Humiliation and a Davids Ahab humbleth himself only for his actual impieties and that because of judgments threatned and impending over him but David even when he heareth God had forgiven his iniquity yet hath great humiliation for his sinnes and Psal 51. thinketh it not enough to bewail his adultery and murder but to confess That in iniquity he was conceived his actual sinnes carried him to the original Thus Paul also Rom. 7 when he miserably complaineth of that impotency in him to do good that he could never do any good as perfectly fully purely and cheerfully as he ought to do presently he goeth to the cause of all this deordination the Law of sinne within him that original sinne which was like a Law within him commanding him to think to desire to do sinfully and obeyed it in all though against his will insomuch that he saith He was carnal and sold under sinne This the Apostle doth complain of as the heaviest burden of all So that an unregenerate man may by the light of nature bewail and complain of his actual impieties he may cry out Oh wretched man that I am for being such a beast such a devil so exorbitant and excessive but whether he can do this for the body of sinne within him as Paul did that may justly be questioned And therefore you see then the troubles and workings of conscience in some men to miscarry greatly They seem to be in pain and travails of soul but all cometh to nothing Oh how many in times of danger and under fear of death do sadly cry out of such sins they have committed Oh the promises and resolutions they make if ever God give them recovery again But all this passeth away even as mans life it self like a vapour like a tale that is told And one cause of the rottenness and defect of this humiliation is because it did not go to the bottom of the soare there was the inward and deep corruption of original sin that such never took any notice of and so in all his sorrow did omit that which is the most aggravating cause of all grief and trembling O Lord I have not only done this wicked thing but I had an heart an inclination of soul to carry me to it and therefore actual sinnes though ten thousands of them they pass away the guilt only remaining but this original pravity continueth in the pollution of it Fifthly Ignorance of original sinne makes us also mistake in the crucifying and mortifying of sinne No man can truly and spiritually leave a sinne unless he doth conquer it and subdue it in some measure in the original and root of it and this is a sure difference between a regenerate and unregenerate man about leaving or forsaking of sinne They both may give over their wonted actual impieties They both may have escaped the pollution of the world and that through the knowledge of the Gospel 2 Pet. 2. 20. but the one leaveth only the acts of sinne the other mortifieth it gradually though not totally in the cause and inclination of the soul Thus Paul Rom. 7. though he complain of those actual stirrings and impetuous motions of sinne yet withall he can truly say I delight in the Law of God in the inner man Now no hypocrite or unregenerate man can say so Though he be outwardly washed yet he hath a swinish nature still his inward parts are as loathsom as noisom as ever before Though there be a fair skinne drawn over the wound yet in the bottom there is as much corruption and putrefaction as ever before Samson's hair is only cut it 's not plucked up by the root so that it 's not enough to have given over thy former profaneness Thou thankest God thou art not the man once thou wert Oh but consider whether sinne in the root of it as well as in the branches of it doth wither and die daily A disease is not cured till the cause of it be in some measure at least removed As long as originall sinne is not in some degree mortified thy old sins or some other will break out as violently as ever here is the fountain and root of all within thee Sixthly He that is ignorant of the nature and extent of this natural defilement he must needs grosly mistake about the nature of conversion and be wholly ignorant of what regeneration is As you see in Nicodemus John 3. 6. though a master in Israel yet grosly mistaking about a new-birth and what was the reason of it That appeareth by our Saviours argument to prove the necessity of it Whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh implying by this That if Nicodemus had known that by natural generation he was nothing but flesh that is sinne and evil his soul his mind his conscience all was flesh in this sense as well as his body then he would quickly have discerned the necessity of being born again then he would not have continued a day an hour a moment in such a dangerous condition And what
to act therein And 3. Of cruelty that God who is so ready to forgive us our own sinnes yet should impute to us Adam's But these are fig leaves only and cannot cover the Objectors nakedness SECT II. FOr First We do not say That the Nature of man as it was created first had this imbred pollution in it No it came out of Gods hands pure and clean Eccles 7. ult God made man upright It was after Gods own Image that he made him he had no experimental knowledge of any evil within him But as it was with the earth after mans fall it brought forth bryars and thorns being cursed which as it is thought it would not have done so before Thus upon Adams transgression then and not till then was his soul cursed spiritually to bring forth nothing but bryars and thorns such lusts as were fit combustible matter for hell fire Therefore every Infant almost may understand this That the maintaining of this Truth doth not at all redound to Gods dishonour for we see the like in the Devils Are not they become wicked spirits Is there not an utter impossibility in a Devil to do any thing that is good Are they not called the spiritual wickednesses in high places Ephes 6. 12. as if they were nothing but all over wickedness yet the Devil though so vile and abominable was made a glorious creature None of this poison was at first infused into him but the Apostle Jude ver 6 layeth it wholly upon themselves That they kept not their first estate but left their own habitation The Devils then though so full of wickedness yet are not a reproach to God their Maker but it was through their own wilfulness they became such Apostates Hence in the second place Adam when he first transgressed that command of God and thereby involved all mankind in darkness and misery did it from a voluntary free principle within there was no internal or external necessity compelling him to sinne for he was made with the image of God in him and that matter wherein he did transgress he might easily have attained from God giving him liberty to eat of all other trees so that it was meerly and solely from Adams own will that he undid himself and all his posterity It is true God if he had pleased could have prevented his sinning he could have confirmed him in such grace as we see he did the other Angels that fell not whereby he would certainly have been preserved from all sinne but God is the supreme Sovereign and is not tied up as men are to inferiour Laws It is true he is an eternal Law of Righteousness to himself whereby he cannot do any thing but what is just and righteous yet he hath also an absolute Dominion over all things and may dispose of his creatures as he pleaseth and from this it was that he created man with power to fall as well as to stand making him mutable and changeable whereas the glorified Saints in Heaven shall be delivered from such mutability and there shall not be in them a posse peccare a power to sinne so greatly shall their souls be perfected in Heaven So that still you see God is freed and mans destruction is of himself Hence also in the third place when Adam sinned at first it was not after the same manner as we sinne for when we sinne this floweth from a corrupted nature within Jam. 1. 17. Every one is tempted and drawn aside with the lust that is within him But in Adam there was no such vicious principle It is therefore a false and dangerous position of the Socinians That we sinne in the same manner that he did That we have no more corrupted Nature in us then he had but as he had a free-will by which he chose either good or evil so it is with us But this speaketh open defiance against the Scripture For was Adam by nature the child of wrath Were the imaginations of his thoughts only evil and that continually Could Adam say He found a Law of sinne in his Members warring against the Law of his mind Adam's sinne therefore came from the meer mutability and changeableness that was in his will there being no antecedent corruption in him Insomuch that it hath greatly exercised learned Divines to shew how Adam could sinne and wherein the imperfection did first break forth he being made after the Image of God but in us our sinfulness ariseth from a necessity contracted by the first voluntary transgression and so have a corrupt nature which inclineth to all corrupt actions Adam was in some sense a good Tree and yet did bring forth bad Fruit a sweet Fountain and yet did send forth bitter Streams Here we might say a Vine brought sorth Thorns and a Fig Thistles but we are bad Trees poisoned Fountains Briars and Thorns only from the paralleling of our selves with Adam we may conclude our incurableness as also the danger we are in by every temptation For if Adam though without any corrupt principle within him though without the least spark of any lust was yet so easily inflamed by a temptation What may we expect who have the seed of all evil within us If the green Ivy shall take fire so soon what will the dry Tree do Oh take heed of coming near any occasion of sinne As our Saviour said Remember Lots wife so do thou Adams wife yea and Adam himself These though created holy though without any lustful inclination yet did presently yeeld to the temptations of sinne What then wilt not thou do If Samson with his strength cannot resist the Philistims much less when that is gone can he withstand them But of this difference between Adam and us in sinning more in its time In the fourth place God is to be justified though we be born full of sinne because we are to distinguish between nature it self and the corruption cleaving to it We say our Nature our Essence and Substance our Souls and Bodies in respect of their natural Being are the work of God and we are with David to admire the curious workmanship of God in respect of our Bodies The excellent composition of all the bodily parts did convince even Galen though otherwise an Heathen God therefore as a Creator is to be praised and glorified by us only as Austin of old we must not so praise Deum Creatorem as to make Superfluum Servatorem We must not so celebrate the name of God as a Creator that thereby we should make a Saviour superfluous and unnecessary Sub laudibus naturae latent inimici gratiae under the praises of Nature the enemies of Grace hide themselves and so under the praises of God as a Creator the enemies of Christ as a Saviour shelter themselves Nature then we say is good our Substance and Being is of God onely the defilement annexed inseparably thereunto is of man Even as in our bodies the substance of them is of God but God did not
punishment the punishment of another Besides that it is sinne inherent in us and not only imputed appears by David's acknowledgement Psal 51. In sinne was I born and in iniquity did my mother conceive me But of this more in time You see by what hath been said That our original sinne is more than meer guilt or Adam's actual sinne imputed to us it denoteth withall an inherent contagion of the whole man Therefore it is absurdly and falsly said by that late Writer It may be called original guilt rather than original sin SECT V. IN the fourth place there are those yet who draw a more narrow line in this matter than the former For when this Question is put Whether original inherent sin be truly and properly a sin They then distinguish between Peccatum and Vitium It is vitium say they but not peccatum or when it is called peccatum it is in a large sense not strictly and properly For with these nothing is a sinne properly but some action repugning to the word of God and because original sinne cannot be an action therefore say they it 's not properly a sinne In which sense they deny habits of sinne to be peccata but only vitia Though this be to play with words seeing the same thing is intended And although Austin abstaineth much from the word peccatum as if that alwayes did suppose a reatus yet that is a needless scrupulosity men may use words as they please Therefore Hierom thought Vide Whitak de peccato orig lib. 3. cap 6. vitium was more than peccatum contrary to Austins notion when he said Some man might be found without vice but not without sinne They say indeed a thing may repugn the Law of God three wayes Either Efficienter so the Devils and wicked men do yet they are not sinnes 2. Materially and thus the act of every sinne doth 3. Formally and so the obliquity in the act only doth and this they make only truly and properly a sinne But whether this will stand good or no will be examined in the Objections As also that Assertion of a learned man Molinaus vide infra That original sinne is condemned by the Law but not prohibited it being absurd as he thinks to appoint a Law for one grown up that he should have been born without sinne It is true in assigning the proper notion of sinne to it hath some great difficulty Neither doth it become us to be over-curious in this point above what is written remembring that original sinne came in by desiring too much knowledge I shall therefore treat of it so farre as it may tend to edification not to satisfie curiosity For when Austin was puzled with such doubts he brings that known Apologie Epist 29. of one who fell into a deep pit and being ready to be suffocated he crieth out to one passing by to help him out The man asketh him How he came in Do not saith he stand disputing of that but help me out Thus saith he every man being fallen into this deep pit of original sinne it 's not for us to be curiously and tediously inquiting how we came in but speedily seek for the grace of God to deliver us our CHAP. VIII That the inward Contagion which we have from Adam's Disobedience is truly and properly a Sinne. THerefore in the fifth place This sinne whereby we are infected from Adam's disobedience is truly and properly a sinne we are truly and inherently made sinners by Adam A man is not more properly and really made a sinner by any actual transgressions he doth commit then he is by his original sinne he is born in Insomuch that though an Infant knoweth not what he doth nor is capable of acts of reason when he is born yet he is properly and formally a sinner and the discovery of this will make much for our humiliation and Christs Exaltation Now that it is truly and properly a sin appeareth by these Arguments Argum. 1. That the Scipture speaking of it doth constantly call it so and therefore we are not to recede from the proper interpretation unless some weighty reasons compelâ—us What a poor and weak thing is it to deny original sinne to be imputable to us or to have the proper essence of evil because with Aristotle none are blamed for those things they have by nature or are not in their own power For it 's plain Aristotle understood nothing of this original pollution and by his Philosophy we must also quit many fundamental points in our Christian saith It is enough that the Scripture speaking of it and that purposely doth call it sinne as Psal 51. this Chapter of Romans and Chap. 7. often It 's the Law of sinne working in us So that this want of Gods Image and an inclination to evil is not to be considered as a meer punishment or as a spiritual disease and weakness upon nature but no sinne at all For it 's as truly a sinne as an actual sinne yea in some respects it is a more grievous and heavy sinne than actual sinnes as is to be shewed For the cause hath more in it than the effect It is from this evil heart that all actual evils do flow Argum. 2. It 's truly and properly a sin Because thereby a man is made obnoxious to death and eternal condemnation The wages of sinne is death and by nature we are children of wrath If then for this inherent corruption we die we are subject to miseries to Gods wrath and the curse of the Law then it must necessarily follow that this is truly and properly a sin Argum. 3. That which is made opposite to Righteousness that is truly and properly sinne For not punishment and Righteousnesse but sinne and Righteousnesse are two immediate Contraries Now it 's plain That this inherent corruption makes us sinners so that we need to be made righteous by Christ Argum. 4. The Apostle distinguisheth Adam 's imputed sinne and inherent sinne as two sinnes and so they have a two-fold distinct guilt as is to be shewed though some think it hard to say so Thus the Apostle By one mans offence sinne entred into the world Therefore Adam's actual sinne and that sinne which entred thereby are two distinct sinnes and differ as the cause and the effect By imputed sinne we are said to sinne in him actually as it were because his will was our will but by inherent sinne we are made sinners by intrinsecal pollution Argum. 5. This original inherent sinne is truly and properly a sinne Because it is to be mortified to be crucified We are to subdue the reign of it in our hearts which could not be if it were not properly a sin Argum. 6. It is a true and proper sinne Because by this our persons are made unclean so that naturally we cannot please God We are corrupt fountains we are bad trees and all this before we commit any actual sin Argum. 7. If Adam had stood that which would have been
the natural Law which was at first in the Creation of man but that primordial and original Law is the same for substance with the moral though differing in some respects To the Argument therefore we say First That as this original sinne is voluntary voluntate causae which was Adam's will so it is also against a Law which was enjoyned Adam For although Adam had not a Law upon him in respect of the beginning or original of the righteousness he had he being created in that and so was not capable of any Law yet in respect of the preservation and continuation of this for himself and his posterity so he had a Law imposed on him and therefore violating of that Law we in him also did violate it You see then this original sin is a transgression of that Law which Adam was under viz. the continuation of the righteousness he was created in both for himself and his posterity Secondly Even by the moral Law or the Decalogue this original corruption is forbidden The Apostle Rom. 7. sheweth That he had not known lust to be a sinne had not the Law said Theu shalt not lust So that as the Law forbiddeth actual lusting thus it doth also the principle and root of it for the Law is spiritual and in its obligation reacheth to the fountain and root of all sin it doth not only prohibit the sinfull motions of thy soul but the cause of all these Even as when it commands any holy duty to love God for instance it requireth that inward sanctification of the whole man whereby he is inabled to love God upon right and induring grounds otherwise if this were not so the habits of sinne would not be against Gods Law nor the habits of Grace required by it as therefore it was with Adam his actual transgression was directly and immediately forbidden by the Law of God but that habital depravation of the whole man which came thereupon was forbidden remotely and by consequence Thus it is with that native contagion we are born in and this should teach us in every sin we commit to think the Law doth not forbid and condemn this actual sin only but the very inward principle of it say to thy self Alas I should not only be without such vain thoughts such vain affections but without an inclination thereunto Therefore mark the Apostle reasoning Ephes 4. 22 24 25. When he had exhorted them to put off the old man that is original sinne and to put on the new man which is the Image of God immediately opposing that See what he inferreth thereupon Wherefore put away lying they must leave that actual sinne because they have in measure subdued original sinne Thus it holds in all other sins put away pride earthliness prophaneness because the old man is first put away in some degrees But oh how little do men attend to this They think of their actual sins they say This I have done is against Gods Law but go no deeper they do not further consider but God forbids and layeth his axe to the root as well as the branches the fruit Thirdly A sinne doth not therefore cease to be a sin because the Law doth not now forbid it it was enough if it were once forbidden and contrary to Gods Law otherwise we might say That all sins which are past are no sins for the Law doth not require that what hath been done should be undone again or not to be done for that is impossible ex natura rei If therefore ever original sinne hath been under a Law prohibitive of it that is enough to make it a sin though now it cannot be helped Hence Almain the Schoolman hath a distinction of Debitum praecepti and Debitum statuti which other Schoolmen also mention now they apply it thus To be born without sin is not say they Debitum praecepti it doth not become due by any precept or command but it is Debitum statuti that is God had first appointed such an order that whosoever should come of Adam should be born in that righteousness which Adam was created in and was to preserve for himself and his posterity so that though there be no direct Praeceptum divinum yet they say there is Ordinatio divina that we should have been born without sinne Although we need not runne to this because it is now against the moral Law of God as you heard proved SECT VI. ANother Objection is from the Justice Equity and Righteousness of God as also his Mercy and Goodness How can it be thought consonant to any of these attributes that we should be involved in guilt and sinne because of anothers especially they urge that Ezek. 18. 18 19. where God saith The child shall not bear the sins of his father and the Lord doth it to stop their prophane caâ—il against his wayes as if they were not equal because the fathers did eat sour grapes and the childrens teeth were set on edge The Remonstrants are so confident that in their Apology cap. 7. they say Neither Scripture nor Gods Truth nor his Justice nor his Mercy and Equity nor the Nature of sinne will permit this To answer this First It is not my purpose at this time to enter into that great Debate Whether the sins of parents are punished in their children And it so How it stands with the Justice of God It is plain That in the second Commandment it is said That God being a jealous God because of Idolatry he will visit the sins of such persons to the third and fourth generation The same likewise is attributed unto God Exod. 34. 7. when his glorious Properties are described experience also in the destruction of Sedom and Gomorrah as also in the drowning of the world doth abundantly testifie this For no doubt there was in those places as God said of Ninevch many little ones that did not know the right hand from the left and so could not have any consent to the actual iniquities of their Parents To reconcile therefore that place of Ezek. 18. where God saith The child shall not bear the iniquity of his Father with those former places hath exercised the thoughts of the most learned men variously endeavouring to unty that knot Though I find some of late understanding that of Ezekiel only for that particular occasion as it did concern the Jews in their particular judgment of Captivity who complained that for their fathers iniquities they were transported into a strange Land So that they think it not to be extended universally but limited to that people only and at that time and that alone to that Land of Israel because they were driven from their own Countrey But whether this Interpretation will abide firm or no it is certain that the Text doth not militate against our cause in hand For 1. As hath been shewed There is not the same reason of parents since Adam 's fall as of Adam for he was a common person and
education or to be candidates of the true faith is not enough but both are requisite as Tertullian of old mentioned both seminis praerogativa and institutionis disciplina Though therefore children of both or one believing parent are in this sense clean and holy yet by nature they are unclean neither doth this external holiness deliver them from inward contagion Yea suppose some should be regenerated in the very womb as John Baptist was yet this Text holdeth true in him for he was by nature unclean he had not the holy Ghost by natural descension from his parents for then all children should be so sanctified but it was Gods grace and power that made him clean of unclean John Baptist therefore was conceived in sinne and by nature a child of wrath but the grace of God made him clean yet not totally and perfectly as if no uncleanness was in him for even Job though in so high a degree sanctified yet speaks this truth in the Text to himself as then and at that time considered not to what he was once before his conversion but even in that renewed estate he was in if God should cast his eyes upon him and judge him with severity he would find much uncleanness adhering unto him The second Objection is propounded by Socinus who saith It cannot be conceived that one actual transgression of Adam should infect the whole nature of man one Act cannot contract an habit of sinne So then he saith It 's impossible that one sinfull act should all ever defile Adam and make him totally sinfull much lesse that it should infect the whole nature of man And the Remonstrants they pursue this Argument If say they Apolog pro Confessione exam Cens cap. 7. pag. 85. that one act of sinne did expel all grave in Adam then it did it either quatenus peccatum as it was a sinne and if so then every little sinne the godly man commits much more grosse sinnes would cast him out of all grace would root out the seed of God in him which yet say they the Calvinists will in no wise endure Or it cometh so from some peculiar ordination and divine appointment of God If so they bid us bring out that order and manifest such an appointment that one sinne onely should deprive a man of the whole Image of God when now one sinne doth not or cannot extirpate the habit of grace but every godly man hath sinne and grace also in him To this many things are to be answered First That it is a vain and an absurd thing to give leave to our humane reasonings that such a thing cannot be when the event discovers it is so It is plain That upon Adam's actual transgression he was deprived of the Image of God he was created in Adam therefore having lost that spiritual and supernatural life we need not curiously dispute how one stab as it were of sin could kill him Certainly even the least sin is present poison and would kill immediately if Gods grace did not prevent Secondly That one sinne may suddenly deprive the subject of all Grace it hath appeareth plainly in those Apostate Angels Did not the first sinne which was in them a thought or an act of the will what it was it is disputed Did not that immediately throw them out of their divine and blessed Habitations And by that one and first sinne was not a glorious Angel made immediately a black Devil It is true indeed We cannot say the Devils have original sinne In this sense As if because when the first Angel sinned all the rest sinned in him as if all their wils were bound up in him No They all stood upon their own bottom they all sinned personally and voluntarily by their own actual transgression though happily it might be by imitation and consent to him that first sinned yet for all this we see plainly that in every Apostate Angel one sinne was enough to deprive him of all the good he had and to fill him with such inveterate enmity to all goodness That the Devil though of such natural light in his conscience yet is not able to do one good work or have the least holy thought Thirdly Sinne doth expel grace both formally or as some call it efficiently and meritoriously also it expels it formally as darkness doth light as diseases do sickness or death life and meritoriously deserving that God should deprive us of all holiness and deny any further grace to us The Remonstrants they call this folly and absurdity to say Sinne expels grace actually and meritoriously also For if it do actually what need is there of meritoriously If a man actually put out his eyes it 's absurd to say he deserveth by that to have them put out Or if a man wilfully throw away his garments making himself naked that he deserveth to be naked But these instances do no wayes enervate this Truth for in that sinne doth thus actually and meritoriously also deprive us of grace we see the hainousness of it one sheweth how sinne is in it's own self like poison that presently kils and the other how odious it is to God that if it did not of it self deprive us of spiritual life yet it doth so provoke God that because of it God would not continue his daily grace to us Besides though sinne doth formally expel the grace that is inherent in us yet Gods grace without us his preventing cooperating and continuing grace without which we could not abide a moment in the state of grace that it chaseth away meritoriously only So that Adam in his first sinne did both chase away the Image of God in him and deserve that God should withdraw his assisting and preserving grace without which he could not have continued in his good estate yea sinne doth so meritoriously expel grace that could Adam by his own power have immediately recovered himself and instated himself into the condition he was in yet he deserved for that former transgression that God should have outed him of all As they say A man that hangeth himself if it were possible 〈…〉 to live presently again the Law would adjudge him to death for 〈…〉 of himself Therefore in the last place you see why every sinne in a godly man no 〈◊〉 it be a gross sinne doth not immediately deprive him of all grace as we see it did in Adam and the Apostate Angels Not that sinne in it self would not do so in them as well as in those but because God entred into a gracious Covenant and Promise with every believer through Christ to perpetuate his interest and union with him so that if he fall he shall have grace to recover himself neither will every spark of grace within him be suffered wholly to be extinguished although in Adam there was a peculiar reason why his sinne did infect all mankind because as Aquinas saith well Adam in quantum fuit principium 〈◊〉 naturae habuit rationem causae universalis ex
of it or like one Intellectus agens as some Philosophers dreamed but it is in every man that cometh in the world every one that is born hath his birth-corruption Therefore David doth not speak of that iniquity as it is in all mankind but as it was his case and as he was born in it So that it is not enough for you to say It is true it cannot be denied but that all are sinfull by nature but you must come home to your own heart you must take notice of the dung-hill and hell that is in your own hearts Thus the Apostle Paul as you heard Ephes 2. 3. to humble them and to lay them low that they might see all the unworthiness and guilt that was upon them before the grace of God was effectual in them he informeth them not onely of those grosse actual impieties they had walked in but that they were by nature the children of wrath But you may see this duty of bitter and deep humiliation because of original sinne notably expressed in Paul Rom. 7. most of that Chapter is spent in sad groans and complaints because of its still working and acting in him It was the sense of this made him cry out Oh miserable man that I am Dost thou therefore flatter thy self as if there were no such law of sinne prevailing upon thee when thou shalt see Paul thus sadly afflicted because of it Therefore it is that I added in the Doctrine We are to bewail and acknowledge it all our lives For Paul speaks here whatsoever Papists and Arminians say to the contrary in the person of a regenerate man Who did delight in the Law of God in the inward man and yet these thorns were in his side Original sinne in the lusts thereof was too active whereby he could not do the good he would and when he did he did it not so purely and perfectly as he ought So that you see the work you are to do as long as you live Though regenerated though sanctified you are to bewail this sinne yea none but the truly godly do lay it seriously to heart Natural men they either do not believe such a thing or they have not the sense of it which would wound them at the very heart Therefore we read only of regenerate men as David Job and Paul who because of this birth-pollution do humble themselves so low under Gods hand But let us search into this truth SECT V. Which needed not to have been if Adam had stood FIrst Take notice That had Adam stood in the integrity God made him in had he preserved the Image of God for himself and for his posterity then there had been no occasion no just cause for such self-abhorrency as doth now necessarily lie upon us Adam did not hide himself and runne from God neither was he ashamed of himself till sinne had made this dreadfull breach In that happy time of mans innocency there was no place for tears or repentance There was no complaining or grieving because of a Law of sinne hurrying them whither they would not then Adam's heart was in his own power he could joy and delight in God as he pleased but since that first transgression there hath become that grievous ataxy and sad disorder and confusion under which we are to mourn and groan as long as we live for as we necessarily have corruptible bodies which will be pained and diseased as long as we are on the earth so we have also defiled and depraved soules which will alwaies be matter of grief and sorrow to every gracious heart so that they must necessarily cry out Oh Lord I would fain be better I desire to be better but this corrupted heart and nature of mine will not let me The Socinians who affirm That Adam even in the first Creation had such a repugnancy planted in him and a contrariety between the mind and the sensible part that this prevailing made him thereby to commit that transgression do reproach God the maker of man and make him the Author of sinne So then this necessity of confession and acknowledgment of our native pollution was not from the beginning but upon Adam's transgression SECT VI. We must be humbled for a two-fold Original sinne and seek from Christ a two-fold Righteousness SEcondly When we say That original sinne is to be matter of our humiliation and sorrow we must understand that two-fold Original sinne heretofore mentioned viz. Adam 's actual sin imputed to us and that inherent or in-dwelling sin we are born in For seeing the guilt of both doth redound upon our persons accordingly ought our humiliation and debasement to be Yea Piscator thinketh David confesseth both these in this verse In the first place In iniquity was I shapen or born as he interprets it viz. in Adam's iniquity And in the second place in or with for so some render it sinne did my mother conceive me which is to be understood of that imbred pollution howsoever it be here it is plain Rom. 5. that the Apostle debaseth and humbleth us under this two-fold consideration first That we all sinned in him there is the imputed sinne And secondly That by his disobedience we are made sinners there is our birth-sin So that those who would hunger and thirst after Christ finding a need of him must seek for a two-fold benefit by Christ answering this two-fold evil First the grace of Justification to take away the guilt of all sinne and then of Sanctification in some measure to overcome the power of it that as we have by the first Adam imputed and inherent sinne so by the second Adam imputed and inherent righteousness SECT VII The Different Opinions of Men about Humiliation for Original Sinne. THirdly There are those who make such an humiliation and debasement as David here professeth altogether needless and superfluous but they go upon different grounds For First All such who do absolutely deny any such thing they must needs acknowledge all such confessions to be lies and falshoods that it is but taking of Gods name in vain when we confess such a thing by our selves if it be not indeed in us For if Adam should have said Behold God created me in iniquity and formed me in sinne would not this have been horrible lying to God and blaspheming of his Name No less is it If their Position be true That we are born in the same condition and estate that Adam was created in derogatory to God and a bold presumptuous lie for men in their prayers to acknowledge such a sinne dwelling in them when indeed it doth not So then if this be true That we are not born in original sinne then David doth in this penitential Psalm fearfully abuse the Name of God speaking that which is a lie and a most abominable untruth But whose fore-head is so hardned as to affirm this Yet all such who deny there is any birth-sinne they must also say there is no confession to be made
of sinne is expresly said to be in the members And whereas the Apostle in that verse saith He seeth a Law in his members bringing him into captivity to the Law of sinne that doth not argue a distinction between these but according to the use of the Scripture the Antecedent is repeated for the Relative the sense being That the Law of his members did bring Paul into captivity to it notwithstanding the Law of the mind with in him as Gen. 9. 16. I will remember saith God himself the everlasting Covenant between God that is my self and every living creature We see then in these words that the Apostle giveth another name to that original sinne which dwelleth in him he calleth it very emphatically The Law of sinne in him Original corruption is even in Paul though converted how much more in all unregenerate persons by way of a Law From whence observe That the Scripture cals original sin the Law of sin Within us SECT II. TO understand this take notice of these things First The Apostle in his Epistles doth delight to use the word Law and that when speaking of contrary things The Law of God the Law of Works This he mentioneth properly but then he cals it The Law of faith because the Hebrew word for Law signifieth no more than Doctrine for Torath either comes they say from a word that signifieth to appoint or teach or from a word that signifieth to rain because saith Chemnitius as the raine is gathered together in the clouds not to be kept there but to be emptied on the earth that so it may be made fruitfull Thus the Law of God was appointed by God not meerly to be written in the Bible but also to be implanted in our hearts The word then in the Hebrew signifying Doctrine in the general no wonder if the Gospel be called The Law of Faith So Regeneration Rom. 8. is called The Law of the Spirit of life as in other places it is The Law of God written in our hearts but the Apostle doth not only apply it to these things but especially in this Chapter he cals it The Law of sinne not sin only but the Law of sinne and the Law in our members why the Apostle doth so you shall hear anon Only In the second place you must consider when the Apostle cals it The Law of sinne it is in an improper and abusive or allusive sense for a Law properly is only of that which is good the matter of a Law must be honest and just because a Law is pars juris and Jus is à justo Therefore Aquinas saith That unjust Laws are rather violentia than leges Yea Tully saith Such Decrees are neither Leges nor ne appellandae quidem yet the Scripture speaks of some who make iniquity a Law Psal 99. 20. or who frame mischief for a Law Tacitus complaineth of the multitude of Laws in his time and saith The Commonwealth groaned ut flagitiis ita legibus So that although the properties of a Law are to be good and profitable yet by allusion all unjust and hurtfull Decrees are called Laws and thus the Apostle cals it the Law of sinne alluding to those properties or effects which a Law hath What the Law of God doth in a regenerate man the contrary doth the Law of sinne in a natural man SECT III. Original Sinne compared to a Law in five respects ORiginal sinne therefore may be compared to a Law in these respects First A Law doth teach and direct Lex est lux It informeth and teacheth what is to be done Thus the Schoolmen they make Direction the first thing necessary to a Law The work of grace in a godly man is called by the Apostle The Law of the mind in this Chapter Because grace within a man doth teach and direct him what to do Hence 1 John 2. 27. the godly man is said to have an anointing within him The Law of God is written in his inward parts and so from within as well as by the Word without they are taught what to do Thus on the contrary the Law of sinne in a natural man doth teach and prompt him to all kind of evil This Law of sinne doth not indeed teach what we ought to do but it doth wonderfully suggest all kind of wickedness to us and from this cause it is that you see children no sooner able to act but they can with all readiness runne into evil sinnes that they have not seen committed before their eyes they can with much dexterity accomplish What a deal of instruction and admonition is requisite to nurture your young ones in the fear of the Lord And all is little enough And why is this The Law of God is not in their hearts they have not that in them which would direct and teach holiness But on the other side children need not to be taught wickedness you need not instruct them how to sinne they have much artifice and cunning in an evil way And why so The Law of sinne is in them this is that they are bred with So that as the young ones of Foxes and Serpents though they have no teacher yet from the Law of nature within them they grow subtil and crafty in their mischievous wayes Thus the Law of sinne doth in every man he is ingenious and wise to do evil As the ground ere it will bring forth corn doth need much labour and tillage but of it self bringeth forth bryars and thorns Thus all by nature are so foolish and blind that without heavenly education and institution you cannot bring them to that which is holy but of their own selves men have subtilty and abilities to frame mischievous things And why is all this They have a Law of sinne within them which directs suggests and informeth to do much evil So that we are not to put all upon the Devil to say He put it into my minde he suggested such thoughts to me No the Law of sinne within thee can sufficiently prompt thee to all evil Secondly A Law doth not onely teach but it doth instigate and incline it presseth and provoketh to the things commanded by it Thus the Law of the mind in a godly man doth greatly instigate and provoke him to what is good It is like a goad in his side it is like fire in his bowels he must do that which is good else he cannot have any rest within him You read when David refrained for a while from speaking good at last he could hold no longer but the fire did break out So Paul 2 Cor. 5. The love of Christ constraineth us Thus the true believer he hath a principle of grace within him which is like a Law upon him he cannot do otherwise he must obey it Thus on the contrary Original sinne in a natural man is like a Law within him it provoketh him it enflameth him to all evil Whensoever any holy duty is pressed upon him this Law of sinne stirreth him
whereas the reason they give why by flesh cannot be meant wholly sinfull Because say they then in the opposition by Spirit would be meant wholly spirituall whereas the Orthodox do acknowledge a conflict with the Spirit and the flesh abiding in every regenerate man But to this the Answer is That the abstract is put for the concrete spirit for spiritual so that the Subject in the Proposition Born of the Spirit Spirit is the holy Spirit of God and the Predicate is made spirit Spirit is to be understood of that spiritual and heavenly nature wrought in us by him And although he who is made thus spiritual is not purely and absolutely so yet the Spirit will in time subdue and wholly conquer the flesh in which sense Gal. 5. They that are Christs are said to have crucified the flesh with the lusts thereof Although there be the reliques and remainders of it still in the most holy The Text then being thus vindicated the Observation is That all men born in a natural way are not only without the Image of God but thereby also are positively polluted and made all over flesh and sinfull SECT II. Of the use of the word Flesh in Scripture And why Original Corruption is called by that name TO discover this in the first place It is good to take notice of the use of the word Flesh in Scripture for the mis-understanding or mis-applying of it hath brought in a world of mischief The Papists by Flesh I mean some of them understanding only the bruitish and sensitive part as if sinne were onely resident there and the rational part were free and pure but this is a very great errour For besides the general use of the word Flesh in the Scripture there is two more pertinent to our purpose 1. Flesh is sometimes taken for that which is weak and frail Isa 31. Their horses are flesh and not spirit Psal 78. He remembred they were but flesh And 2. It is often taken for sinfulness and corruption Thus Gal. 5. The works of the flesh are opposite to the works of the Spirit and men who are in the Flesh Rom. 8. cannot please God Gal. 3. Who having begun in the Spirit will ye end in the flesh To be in the flesh and in the Spirit are made two opposite beings by the Apostle Insomuch that we may make it a sure Rule That wheresoever flesh is opposed to the Spirit of God or its spiritual operations that then flesh is used for that which is evil and sinfull and thus it is in the Text. The true notion therefore of the word Flesh being retained Let us consider Why original sinne is thus called Flesh And First It is called so Because of its opposition to what is spiritual Whatsoever the Spirit of God revealeth to be believed or commands to be obeyed it is wholly contradicted by man while abiding in the flesh Thus the Apostle Rom. 8. The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God You see here is not only a meer privation of what is spiritual but a positive enmity and frowardness against God and therefore we do not speak enough to describe the fulness of our natural evil when we say that we came naked into the world without the Image of God and his Spirit for original sinne hath a contrariety in it against God it puts a man upon hatred of whatsoever is holy therefore the Apostle addeth Rom. 8. 5. It is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Oh then that God would make our hearts more of flesh in the Prophet Ezekiels sense viz. tender and melting under considerations of how much flesh is in both mind and heart in the Apostles sense Would thy self-righteousness thy self-love thy self-fulness continue any longer if thou didst thus judge and believe concerning thy self Oh what a noisom carkass what a loathsom monster wouldst thou be in thy own eyes if thou didst consider the positive frowardness and opposition which is in thee to what is holy And therefore even in the regenerate Gal. 5. 17. The Flesh is said to lust against the spirit Search then into thy heart and say From whence doth arise these gainsayings and oppositions which are in me to what is holy Why should not heavenly and spiritual things be as welcome pleasing and delightfull to me as sinfull and wordly objects Is not all this because thou art Flesh Certainly there is a thousand times more reason for thee to imbrace spiritual objects than earthly They have more real excellent and enduring good in them then all the pleasures of sinne if put together but it is because thou art flesh that thy heart is naturally so full of enmity against whatsoever is spiritual And although this natural enmity be encreased in thee by voluntary wickedness yet that which cleaveth to thee as soon as thou hast a being is enough to make thee refuse the word of God the Ministry inviting of thee and to slight every Sermon thou hearest or every affliction God layeth upon thee for thy sinne mourn then under this enmity this Law of sinne that rebelleth against the Spirit of God This may sensibly and evidently teach thee that thy natural corruption is more than a meer want of the Image of God Secondly In that original corruption is called flesh is manifested That even the whole intellectual and sublimer parts of a man are become sinfull We see our Saviour saith That which is born of flesh is flesh nothing is excepted so that whereas some would have it the rational part The mind and understanding not to be comprehended under this flesh we say the contrary according to Scripture That in the soul and faculties thereof there is originally sinne chiefly seated There is the spring and fountain from whence issue all the streams of sinne into the lower parts of the soul Thus when the Apostle reckons up the works of the flesh Gal. 5. 19 20. There are Idolatry and Heresies numbered with the rest which must needs be sins of the mind How often doth the Scripture speak of darkness ignorance folly and blindness in the minds of all men by nature Col. 2. 18. There it 's called a fleshly mind and certainly if the mind must be renewed as the Scripture speaks Rom. 12. 2. Col. 3. Eph. 4. 23. it necessarily followeth that it is fleshly and sinfull Behold then what a fountain of evil and misery springs out from us in this respect which may overwhelm us For though the inferior parts of the soul had been throughly infected with this Leprosie yet if the superiour and chief parts had not been contaminated there would have been hopes that those Sun-beams would have dispelled such misty clouds but seeing that the eye is become dark How great is our darkness and salt it self having lost its seasoning all must become loathsom and unprofitable Not only thy eyes thy ears not only thy affections and passions of love fear anger c. which are the
powers of the soul must necessarily move sinfully and inordinately The soul of a man is alwayes working one way or other if then it hath lost original righteousnesse it cannot but be hurried on to what is evil as if you take away the pillar on which a stone liethh presently that will fall to the ground If you spoil the strings of musical instruments immediately they make a jarre and ingratefull noise upon every moving of them The soul of a man is a subject immediately susceptible of righteousnesse or corruption and if it lose its righteousnesse then by natural necessity corruption cometh in the room of it and so when the understanding acts it acteth sinfully when the will moveth it moveth sinfully So that we may well say with Austin to the Pelagian demanding How this corruption could come into us for God was good and nature good Quid quaeris latentem rimum cum habes apertam jannam Not a cranny but a gate or door is open for this corruption to seize upon us SECT IV. Application BEfore we come to answer the Objections Let us affect our hearts with it and labour to be humbled under the consideration of this positivenesse and efficacy of it For first Hereby we see that if it be not restrained and stopped by God we know not where we should stay in any sinne What Cain's what Judas's would we not prove Who can say Hitherto I will goe in sinne and no further for there is a fountain within thee that would quickly overflow all This active root of bitternesse this four leaven within thee would quickly make thy life like Job's body full of ulcers and noisome sores If thou art not plunged in the same mire and filth as others are doe not say Thou hast lesse of this corruption than they Thou art borne more innocent than they onely God stops thee as he did Balaam from doing such wickednesse as thy heart is forward enough unto No Serpent is fuller of poyson no Toad of venome than thou art of sinne which thou wouldst be constantly committing were not some stop put in the way Secondly In that sinne is thus positive and inclining thee thou art the more to admire the grace of God if that work a contrary inclination and propensity in thee If thou art brought with Paul To delight in the Law of God in the inward man If thy heart pants after God as the Hart after the waters which once delighted in sinne which once longed after nothing but the satisfying of the flesh Oh admire this gracious miraculous work of God upon thy soul who hath made thee to differ thus from thy selfe The time was once when thou rejoycedst in those sinnes that are now matter of shame and trembling to thee The time was when thy heart was affected with no other good than that of the creature Thou didst know no other desire no other but that but now God hath made iron to swimme he hath made the Blackmoor white Oh blesse God for the least desires and affections which thou hast at any time for that which is good for this cometh not from thee it is put into thee by the grace of God Lastly Consider that this positivenesse of sinne in thee doth not onely manifest it self in an impetuous inclination to all evil but also a violent resistance of whatsoever is good The Apostle Rom. 8. calleth it Enmity against God and Rom. 7. he complaineth of it as warring and fighting against the Law of his minde And certainly this is a very great aggravation not onely to be without what is good but to be a desperate enemy and a violent opposer of it both in others as also to that which the Spirit of God by the Word would worke in our own hearts not onely without the remedy but full of enmity against it Doth not this make our condition unspeakably wretched Certainly this is the highest aggravation in original sinne that we are not onely unable to what is good but we are with anger and rage carried out against it as if good were the onely evil and sweetnesse the onely bitternesse CHAP. XVII Objections against the Positive Part of Original Sinne answered SECT I. Cautions Premised THere remain only some Objections against this Truth but before we answer them take notice First That although we say original sinne is more than a privation of that Righteousnesse which ought to be in man yet We do not make it to be like some infecting corporeal quality in the body that hereby should vitiate the soul and as it were poison that Lombard and some others especially Ariminensis Distinct 30. They seem to deliver their opinion so as rejecting Anselm's definition of original sinne making it to be want of that original righteousnesse which ought to be in us and do declare it to be a morbida qualitas some kinde of pestilential and infecting quality abiding in the body and thereby affecting the soul As when the body is in some phrenetical and mad distempers the soul is thereby disturbed in all its operations so that these make the want of original righteousness to be the effect of original sinne not the nature of it saying upon Adam's sinne Man becoming thus defiled God refused to continue this righteousness to him any longer But if these Schoolmen be further questioned How such a diseased pestilential quality should be in the body Some say it was from the forbidden fruit that that had such a noxious effect with it but that is rejected because that was made of God and all was exceeding good Arimineâ—sis therefore following as he thinketh Austin maketh this venemous quality in a mans body to have its original from the hissing and breath as it were of the Serpent he conceiveth that by their discourse with the Serpent there came from it such an infectious air as might contaminate the whole body and he saith Austin speaks of some who from the very hissing and air from Serpents have been poisoned But the Protestants they do not hold it any positive quality in this sense for this is to make the body the first and chiefest subject of original sinne and so to convey it to the soul whereas indeed the soul is primarily and principally the seat of original sinne We therefore reject this as coming too near Manicheism as if there were some evil and infectious qualities in the very nature and substance of a man Secondly It must be remembred what hath been said before That when we come to give a particular reason why the understanding or will are propense to any evil We can assign only a privative cause viz. Because it wants that rectitude which would regulate it as if a ship it's Anselm's comparison were without Pilot and Governour of tacklings let loose into the whole Ocean it would be violently hurried up and down till it be destroyed Thus man without this Image of God would be tossed up and down by every lust never resting till he had
thus it is no wonder if original sinne which doth so tenaciously and inwardly adhere to all natures be transmitted to every one born in a natural way The last Objection is That there is no necessity of supposing such an habitual vitiosity in a man It 's enough say they that a man be deprived of the Image of God and when that is lost of it 's own self man's nature is prone to evil It needs no habitual inclination to weigh him down as if a wild beast be tied in cords and chains lose him unty him and of himself he will runne into wild and untamed actions But to answer this First The Papists they cannot consequentially to their principles say thus For they hold That if this Image of God be removed he doth continue in his pure naturals there is no sinne inhering in him upon the meer losse of that For they confesse That although by acting from his pure naturals he could not deserve Heaven or love God as a supernatural end yet in an inferiour way as the ultimate natural end so he might love God and that above all other things But secondly That is granted This positive inclination to all evil followeth necessarily from the removal of this Image of God from us If the Sunne be removed then necessarily darknesse doth cover the face of the soul If the loco-motive faculty be interrupted then there is nothing but halting and lamenesse Disturb the harmony and good temperament of the humours and then immediately diseases and pains do surprize the whole man It cannot therefore be avoided that when this disorder is come upon the soul but that our lusts break out as at a flood-gate and we are in a spiritual deluge all over covered with the waters of sin but then here is a positive as well as a privative Besides It is not for us to be curious in giving a reason of such positive corruption in a man by nature it is enough that Gods word is so clear and full in the discovery of it that he must needs wilfully shut his eyes that will not be convinced by the light of Gods word herein And this may suffice to dispel that darknesse which some would have covered this Truth with and as for what knowledge about this positivenesse of original corruption is further necessary We shall then take notice of it when we speak of original sinne as it is called lust or concupiscence SECT III. LEt therefore the Use from the former Doctrine delivered be To affectus and wound us at the very heart that we are thus all over covered with sin that we have not an understanding but to sin a will but to sin an heart but to sin May not this be like a two edged sword within thee What will fire thee out of all thy self-confidence thy self-righteousnesse if this doe not What delight what comfort canst thou take by beholding thy self by looking on thy self thus corrupted and depraved And the rather let this consideration go to the very bottom of thy soul Because First Thy propensity and inclination is to that onely which God onely hateth which God onely loatheth and hath decreed to punish with his utmost wrath to all eternity Consider that sinne is the greatest evil All the temporal evils in the world are but the effect of it that is the cause Now can it ever humble thee enough to think that the whole bent and constant tendency of thy soul is unto that which is the most abominable in the eyes of God Thou canst not do that which is more destructive to thy own soul and more dishonouring unto God then by committing sinne and yet thou canst do nothing else thou delightest in nothing else Thy heart will not let thee do any thing else Look over thy whole life take notice how many years thou hast lived and yet if not regenerated and delivered in some measure from the power of original corruption thou hast done nothing but sinned Every thought hath been a sinne every motion a sinne within thee and yet sinne is the greatest evil and that alone which God hateth Secondly If yet thy heart be hard and nothing will enter take a second naile or wedge to drive into thee and that is being thus all over carried out to sinne not the least good able to rise in thy heart that hereby the very plain Image of the Devil is drawn over thee Hence it is that wicked men are said to be of their Father the Devil and he is said to rule in the hearts of the children of disobedience Ephes 2. What a wofull change is this to be turned from a Sonne of God to become a Devil While Adam retained the Image of God God abode with him and in him there was a near union with God but upon his Apostasie the Devil taketh possession of all and so now man is in a near union with the Devil Every mans soul is now the Devils Castle his proper habitation The Spirit of God is chaced away and now thy heart is made an habitation for these Satyrs Thy soul is become like an howling wildernesse wherein lodge all beastly lusts whatsoever Thou that wouldst account it horrible injury to be called beast and Devil yet thy original sinne maketh thee no lesse Thirdly This further may break thy heart if it be not yet broken enough that hereby thou art utterly impotent and unable to help thy self out of this lost condition For how can a dead man help himselfe to live again How can thy crooked heart be ever made straight unlesse a greater power than that subdue it If thou didst judge thy condition an hopelesse one as to all humane considerations then thou wouldest tremble and have no rest in thy selfe till God had delivered thee out of it Lastly Let this also further work to thy Humiliation that being thus positively inclined to all evil not onely proper and sutable temptations draw out thy sinnes but even all holy and godly remedies appointed by God they do increase this corruption the more And is not that man miserable whose very remedies make him more miserable Doth not the Apostle complain sadly of that Law of sinne in him even in this respect that by this means the Law wrought in him all evil The more holy and spiritual the Law was the more carnal and sinfull was he thereby occasioned to be Oh then What wilt thou do when good things make thee evil spiritual things make thee more carnal CHAP. XVIII A second Text to prove Original Sinne to be Positive opened and vindicated SECT I. ROM 7. 7. For I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet WE are discovering the Nature of original sinne in the Positive part of it For although Corvinus the Remonstrant cavilleth at the Division of original sinne into two parts therein gratifying the Papists as it were yet we see the Scripture speaking of it fully as having these two parts And whereas
under his power though there were no actual sinnes committed by us then let us not matter the speculations of Philosophers nor the Political sentences of Civil Magistrates for by these nothing is accounted culpable but what is voluntary by our own personal will Hence Austin explained that assertion of his when dealing against the Manichees Vsque adeò peccatum est voluntarium c. Voluntariness is so necessary to the being of a sinne that it cannot be any sinne if this be wanting in this saith he all Laws all Nations all Governours c. do agree The Pelagians commended this of Austin and improved it against him but in his explication of himself he calleth it Politica sententia This is true according to the political Laws of Governours and withall agreeth to actual sins But the truth about original sinne meerly by revelation we need not then regard what Aristotle and other Philosophers say in this matter who as they knew nothing of the creation of Adam so neither of his fall and this caution is necessary to every one that would not be deceived in this point Secondly Although in one particular respect this sinne may not be so hainous as others yet in many other respects it doth farre exceed and they are abundantly compensative for that one consideration It is true This sin hath nothing of our own personal voluntariness yea if a man should now consent to this birth-defilement and even rejoyce because he was born thus estranged from God this subsequent will would not make original sin to be a voluntary sin unto him for this is an actual sinne committed a new by the personal will of a sinner But though this be granted yet there are many other respect which do exceedingly aggravate it even those we have mentioned before Hence a learned Schoolman Dela Rua contra Theolog. cont 2. speaking of the comparisons made by Aquinas and others of original sinne with venial ones excuseth them saying They must not be understood in that respect as original sinne is a mortal one for so it doth infinitely exceed any venial one but in that respect as original sinne is not contracted by our own proper action but by Adam in whose will our wils were contained What then though in one particular this sinne may not be so hainous as others yet look upon the many other respects wherein it doth exceed all other hainous sinnes and then you will be compelled to acknowledge the weightinesse thereof Thirdly The chiefest and highest aggravation of a sinne is from the contrariety of it to the Law of God for seeing the Apostle doth define sinne 1 John 3. 4. to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The transgression of the Law then the more irregularity there is in sinne the greater is that sinne Now this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is either habitual or actual and if habitual sins are greater then actual because of the greater dissonancy to Gods Law then must original be more then habitual and so greater then all sins if then we compare original sinne with the Law we shall find it contrary to it in the highest manner that can be For Gods Law doth not require only actual obedience but such obedience flowing from a pure and holy heart and holiness in the heart is more answerable to the Law then holiness in actions Thus on the contrary sinne in the habitual inclination of a man is more opposite to Gods holy Law then the expression of it in several actings If then the Apostle define a sinne by the contrariety of it to Gods Law not by knowledge or voluntariness then where there is the greatest obliquity and declension from this rule though there be not so much voluntariness there is the greater evil So that this respect may silence all those cavils and disputes which are usually brought in to diminish the guilt of this sinne still have recourse to the Law of God and there thou wilt find that whereas actual sins are respectively against respective commands this is against every Law It is against the whole Law and therefore hath as much evil in it in some sense as the Law hath good So that the Use is To exhort every one who would have his heart deeply affected in this point who would be humbled greatly because his sinne is great to take off his thoughts from all those Philosophical or humane arguments which are apt to lessen it Because a Magistrate will not put a man to death unless where he is guilty by some voluntary personal act of his own do not thou therefore think it cruel and unjust with God if he condemn for that sinne wherein though we have not own proper will ingredient yet by imputation it is voluntary But of this more when we are to justifie God in these proceedings against cavilling Sophisters SECT III. That every one by Nature hath his peculiar proper Original Sinne. THe second Doctrine offereth it self in the next place to be considered of which is That every one by nature hath his peculiar proper original sinne which doth betimes vent it self into actual evil For the Text speaketh universally there is not any to be exempted It is made a Question in the Schools Whether there be many or one original sinne onely Aquinas bringeth two Arguments for more original sinnes than one The one is from the Text according to the Vulgar Translation Psal 51. 5. where it is rendred In sinnes did my mother conceive me in the Plural number And then the second from Reason because there being many actual sinnes it cannot seem rational that one original sinne should incline to them all seeing many times these sinnes flow from contrary principle How may it be thought this one sinne should carry a man out concupiscentially to so many contrary lusts Therefore that this truth may be fully demonstrated let us consider these Propositions First That such who deny any original inherent corruption and make Adam 's actual sinne to be ours onely by imputation as Pighius and Catharinus they will say That there is but one original sinne which is by imputation made every mans Even as by the light of one Sunne every man seeth or as some Philosophers say there is one common Intelleotus agens by which all men are inabled to understand So that by this opinion every man hath not his peculiar inherent defilement but that one actual transgression by imputation is made the one common sinne of mankind Now although this is to be granted That Adam's actual sinne is made ours which Chamier and some French Protestants following him do dangerously deny yet the Texts heretofore brought in this point do evidently convince That every one hath his peculiar native defilement that he is born in So that original sinne though it may be called one in specie and proportione yet when we come to every particular man he hath his numerical and individual original sinne in him Although therefore there be as many original sinnes
in every one by nature to what is good To consider this more throughly we are to take notice that original sinne doth not lye in a man asleep or like a sluggish and muddy pool that doth not send forth its noisome streames but by the Apostle Rom. 7. is described as a sinne that is alwayes acting and rebelling against the Law of God and therefore as soon as ever a child is capable of such sinfull actings this original sinne doth put forth it self it is not to be limited to yeares of discretion but even in the childhood of man much folly and vanity many actual motions of sinne do put forth themselves It 's often said by Divines that original sinne is peccatum actuosum though not actuale an active sinne though not an actual and this should make us look back to our very childhood and to mourn for all that folly and vanity we then committed How quickly did thy enmity to holy things begin to appear What a wild Asses Colt or what a young Serpent wast thou plainly manifesting that as thy parts of mind and strength of body should encrease so also would thy corruption break forth more powerfully But of this childhood-sinfulness more is to be spoken SECT V. How soon a Child may commit actual Sinne. WE are treating upon the second part of the Doctrine which is That the proper original sinne that is in every man doth break forth into actual evil betimes From the youth The word is observed by learned men to be used in the Plural number for Emphasis sake and therefore is not to be limited to such a time as when one cometh to years of discretion but even to our childhood therefore the Hebrew word is used of Infants as Moses Exod. 2. 6. and Sampson Jud. 13. 5. although we deny not but that it is also in Scripture applyed to those that are grown up Hence Divines have a Rule Secundum Hebraorum idioma Infans vocatur emnis filius ad comparationem parentum according to the Hebrew custome every son is called an Infant comparatively to his parents and happily we may adde a Disciple and servant respectly to their Superiours This word Obadiah applyeth to himself 1 Kings 18. 12. Thy servant feareth God from his youth This time then of sinning is to be extended further then usually it is imagined for commonly we look not upon the actions of young ones as sinnes till they come to some discretion or if we do we count them very little and venial they are matter of delight more then of humiliation so few are there who do rightly affect themselves with the vanity and folly as also enmity to holy things that they were guilty of even while little children But because this truth hath some difficulty in the doctrinal part thereof let us more exactly enquire into the nature of it which will be seen in several Propositions And First The Lutherans have a peculiar opinion that even Infants whether in the mothers womb or new born are guilty of actual sinnes for whereas they make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Steg Photin dis de peccato Orig. Fewrborn disput 1a. to be applyed sometimes to the Infant in the womb Luk. 1. 41. sometimes to Infants new born 1 Pet. 2. 2. They conclude that even such as these before they have any use of reason are guilty of actual sinnes only concerning actual sinnes they distinguish that such are either taken strictly and precisely for those that came from deliberation and the will or largely for any motions or stirrings of the soul against Gods Law though without the act of will and reason and in this latter sense they say Infants partake of actual sinnes But although original sinne is an active quality in a man and doth begin to work very early yet it cannot be thought to produce actual sinne till the soul by its powers and faculties is able to produce operatins It is true we read of Timothy that he is said to know the Scriptures from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that doth signifie Timothy something grown up and attaining to some understanding for the Lutherans are too peremptory who think a place cannot be brought where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie a child something grown up Timothy therefore is said 2 Tim. 35. To know the Scriptures from a child because his godly Mother and Grandmother did as soon as he was able to receive instruct him in the faith which could not be while a meer Infant Therefore In the next place A second Proposition is That even in the state of integrity had not Adam fallen children new born would have been without actual knowledge as well as in corrupted nature they would not have been born with perfect use of their reason no more then they would have been born with perfect and compleat bodies for such could not have been contained in the womb We take it for granted though some have been for the negative that in the state of innocency there would have been multiplication of children by generation which appeareth in the Creation of a woman for a man and if so then that the children at that time born though they would have been free from original sinne and all the general effects thereof yet would not have been born in a perfect ability actually to use their reason Indeed the Scripture is wholly silent what would have been done if man had not fallen and therefore nothing can be certainly determined unless we had some divine revelation about it yet there is a good Rule given that we must think God would then keep to that ordinary way of nature which we now find except where sinne and the effects thereof have made a difference we are not to make miracles and extraordinary workings of God unless some necessity of reason compell thereunto and thus it would be here if children new born should have had perfect actual knowledge It is true Austin doth seem to incline Vide Augustin de peccator Mer. Rmeist lib. 1. cap. 35 36. especially cap. 37. that as soon as ever the children were come forth from the womb God would have made them great and perfect bodies as he did Eve of Adam's rib immediately or at least made them fit for all motions of the body but this is so improbable that Austin cannot be excused unless we think he spake it doubtingly and by way of inquisition yea not only concerning the body but even the soul also that a child is so long without the use of reason he seemeth to make it not from meer nature but vitiated and polluted This we say hath no probability for we must not think that God would have alwayes in the state of innocency wrought miraculously in the constant propagation of mankind It is true the blindness that is habitually upon the mind of every Infant whereby it is indisposed to receive the Truths of God when grown up would not then have been in Infants There
as a truth to stick in our mind alwayes That God will bring every work unto judgement and thus much for his first reason His second reason is no less nocent The cause of iniquity is not because nature is originally corrupted but because Gods Lawes command such things which are a restraint to the indifferent and otherwise lawfull inclinations of nature Idem ibidem pag. 415 so that our unwillingness and averseness cometh by occasion of the law coming cross upon our nature not because our nature is contrary to God but because God was pleased to superinduce some Commandments contrary to our nature if God had commanded as to eat the best meats and drink the richest wines as long as they could please us I suppose original sinne would not be thought to have hindered us from obedience Thus he in a most prophane and unsavoury manner For First Here again God is made the occasion of all the universal impiety in mankind man may plead my nature is good my inclinations are lawfull but God hath superinduced austere commands he maketh those things sinnes which would not have been sinnes Thus this man doth directly teach the world to lay all their wickedness upon God he is an hard master he is too severe otherwise our natures would do well enough But Secondly He betrayeth much ignorance or concealeth his knowledge that he will not distinguish between moral precepts and meer positive ones or as Whitaker out of Hugo Pracepta Naturae and Praecepta Disciplinae De pecato orig lib. 1. cap. 14. commands of Natural Duties and prohibitions of Intrinsecal evils or such as are meerly Positive and for Discipline-sake Some things we grant are indeed meerly evil because prohibited some things are evil and therefore prohibited Although this must be remembred That a man doth never break a positive command but thereby also he doth a moral command likewise Now let this Patron of Nature answer to this Question Why is there in man-kind such inclinations to those sins that are morally and intrinsically evil Is he of that opinion that nothing is good or evil internally But as Mayro the Schoolman saith God might have made a Law that whosoever should praise him should be damned and whosoever should dishonour him should be saved On monstrous Divinity that maketh virtue and vice nothing in it self If God had pleased vices might have been virtues and virtues vices It is from God that maketh such things to be sins that otherwise would be lawfull This symbolizeth with Diagoras the Atheist first called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his opinion was That a wise man might as time served give himself to theft or adultery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesych de viris illustribus Titulo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for none of such things were in their nature filthy if you take away popular opinions But I will not charge this opinion on the Author only he should not have spoken so confusedly If this be true it is not a vain wish with him who addicted to a sinne cryed out Vtinam hoc non esset peccare Lastly Even those inclinations that are in men to lawfull things are vitiated and corrupted No man desireth to eat to drink no man desireth health or wealth naturally as he ought to do I doubt this Author as all the Pelagians formerly do not attend to the exactnesse of a good work They forget Austin's old Rule grounded upon Scripture That duties are to be esteemed not by the acts but by their ends Is there any man eateth or drinketh or inclineth to do these things for the glory of God as we are commanded 1 Cor. 9. 31. Lastly He runneth to evil examples the similitude of Adams transgression as if that moved those to sinne who happily never heard of him errour false principles c. And from the enumeration of many particulars applieth that of Job Chap. 14. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean which Text might justly have affrighted him in what he delivereth for there Job speaks of one in his very first birth and as is added Ne infans unius diei not an Infant a day old is free from this uncleannesse What can evil examples and wicked customs do to pollute a child new born It is true the Socinians grant That where parents are habituated in evil customs the children may derive from them an inclination also unto sinne But if so then this very thing will puzzle them as much as they endeavour to perplex the Orthodox with difficulties about the transmission of original sinne For How do Parents accustomed to sinne convey this evil disposition either by the soul or by the body And what they would answer themselves in such an asserted propagation the same we may for all mankind in general But 2. This is no sufficient answer for still the Question is not satisfied Men say they are thus inclinded to evil because of wicked customs and examples But how came these customs Cain had no example before him of murder yet he committeth it These evill examples then and wicked customs seeing they must have an original to come from it cannot be any thing else but the depraved nature of mankind And certainly the Apostle James doth attribute all evil committed to that lust which is within a man Jam. 1. 14. So that if there were no other occasion or temptation this is enough to set the whole course of the soul on fire And this is the next particular to be considered which I shall handle as a second Immediate Effect of original sinne CHAP. II. The second Immediate Effect of Original Sinne is the Causality which it hath in respect of all other Sinnes SECT I. The Text explained setting forth the Generation of Sinne. JAM 1. 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed THe next Immediate Effect of Original sinne which cometh under consideration is The Causality that it hath in respect of all other sins This is the dunghill in which the whole serpentine brood of all actual sinnes is conveived and brought forth Insomuch that when you see all the abominable impieties that fill the whole world with irreligion to God and injustice to man If you ask whence ariseth this monster How cometh all this wickedness to be committed The Answer is easie from that original concupiscence that hot Aetna which is in a man that never ceaseth from sending forth such continual flames of iniquity Now this truth will excellently be discovered from the Text in hand for it is the Apostles scope in this and the adjacent verses to take off all men from that wicked way they are so prone unto viz. to lay the blame of their iniquities and to ascribe the cause of them to any yea to God rather than to themselves They will rather make God then themselves the Author of all that evil they do commit We have this from Adam who
nature worketh and when the Devil doth only assault and annoy us But that is not my business now It is enough to know That even from thy own unsanctified heart may arise vain thoughts blasphemous thoughts So that thy soul seemeth unto thee to be not only like a dunghill but an hell it self To these evil stirrings of sinne in the apprehensive part we may referre our sinful dreames even for them God might damn us Austin bewaileth and confesseth his dreames and yet our understanding and will do not so properly work at that time The other sort of workings of soul are such as are by way of love and desire when there arise in the heart some motions and affections to such an object Our hearts being now wholly destitute of the Image of God and sinne having full dominion over us no sooner doth any sinful object present it self but immediately the heart maketh towards it there is a propensity to embrace it Secondly These motions that do thus stirre in the heart are either such as they call motus primo primi or secundo primi the absolute meer first or first in a secondary order There may be difference in the explaining of these but the summe is this These motions are either such which do rise up in our hearts antecedently to any actings of the reason or will at all It was not in our power to repress them or to prevent them for original sin in a man doth not lie sluggish and bound up it is alwayes acting and moving and the immediate motions or first born of the soul are these first stirrings of heart preventing all deliberation and consultation Such a state indeed Adam was not created in nothing did rise up in him before his will and consent and so it was also with Christ But since we are plunged into this corrupt condition sinne hath got the whole mastery over us we are in a Babel and spiritual confusion Every sinful lust riseth in us before we have time to withstand it although if we had time such is our impotency and corruption now that we neither can or will gainsay the torrent of these motions It is true the Papists say they are no sinnes they are matter of exercise to us but they are not sinnes if not consented unto But the Apostle Rom. 7. doth often call them so and they are such as are contrary to the Law of God they are such as make a godly man groan under them and judge himself miserable thereby they are such as are to be crucified and mortified all which shew they have the true and proper nature of sinne So that it is a wonder those should deny these indeliberate motions to be sinne who hold original sinne to be properly and not equivocally a sinne For as it is enough to make original sinne voluntary because it is voluntarium voluntate ejus à quo not in quo est with the will of Adam from whence it descendeth though not with the will of him in which it inhereth Thus also it may be said of these involuntary motions they are of the same nature with original sinne For though they be actual yet flowing necessarily from the mother sinne and being withall a privation of that righteousness which ought to be in us they must be called sinnes as well as original And thus farre Henricus the Schooleman proceedeth as Vasquez alledgeth him Tom. 10. disput 106. to say That these first motions in persons not baptized are sinnes and that they want not such a voluntariness as is requisite to the nature of sinne partly because of the will of the first parents and partly because of the proper will of the man who hath them not because he doth not hinder these motions because he cannot alwayes do this but because he will not by baptisme be expiated from original sinne and consequently from the guilt of these sinnes This later reason we matter not the former hath good strength and is the same in effect with what we say Oh then that we were rightly considering of these things Those millions of thoughts and stirrings of heart which arise before reason and will are able to do any thing these are all sinnes these are contrary to the holy Law of God Adam had them not neither shall the glorified Saints in heaven be in the least manner molested with them How low and debased must thou be in thy own eyes For this it is that the godly go bowed down for this they mourn and pray these afflict them more then gross loathsome sinnes do prophane men the meer civil and formal man the self-righteous and confident man he knoweth none of these things he feeleth not this evil impure frame of his heart this maketh the way of godliness to be such a mystery such an unknown thing but to those that are believers indeed as they have other joyes other comforts then the world knoweth of so they have other motives of sorrow and humiliation then the natural man can understand But as for the first motions of the second sort they have some imperfect consent and complacency and therefore acknowledged by Gerson Compend Theol. to be sinnes yea the former kind of motions though so suddain are affirmed to be sinnes by several Schoolemn upon different reasons but venial as they call them For Henricus held they were mortal now to us all sinnes in their own nature are mortal Therefore all these motions which arise in the soul whether first or second being contrary to the holy Law of God which requireth pure streames and also a pure fountain and also being opposite to the Image of God we were created in must needs be truly sinnes for which we are to humble our selves and to pray continually for the mortification of them Thirdly These motions though they flow from original sinne as the universal cause yet there are particular causes that do excite and draw them forth And it is good to observe how many wayes original sinne being awakened doth produce these sinful motions thereof And 1. Sometimes they arise from the present sensible object that doth affect us Every object either of the eye or ear or touching doth presently work upon the soul not indeed efficiently as some have thought but only by way of alluring and enticing so that it is almost impossible for us either to hear or see any object and not have the first motions of the soul as suddain so sinful about them Oh the miserable depravation of mankind who hath sinne and hell entring into the soul by evey sense it hath there is not any sensible object but it is a snare to thee it stirreth up some sinful motion or other either love or anger joy or fear and all this before grace can work Hence the great work of Christianity is inward and spiritual it is soul-work to set a watch before eyes eares tongue and all the outward parts of the body that the soul be not sinfully disquieted For every
deliberate and to consider about the sinfulness and wickedness of them how much God is offended how loathsom and abominable they are in his eyes and yet we suffer them to lodge there the greater is our condemnation Lastly The Intention and end of such thoughts is to be considered for alwayes cogitatio mali is not mala cogitatio the thought of evil is not an evil thought When men think of sinne to repent of it to detest it to reform it sinne is in their mind then but because there are no delightfull motions to it therefore it is not evil So if a Minister preach against adultery or any other sinne he cannot but think of the nature of it and what it is yet because his intention in thinking of it is to make men abhorre and leave it therefore it is good and lawfull So that meer thoughts about sinne are not alwayes sinne but when accompanied with some affections and inclinations thereunto Onely it is good to inform you That such is our deceitfulness of heart that many times we think it lawfull to rejoyce and delight in some profit and emolument that may come by another mans sinne or some evil upon him when indeed we are glad of the sin or evil it self If a man by telling a lie should save thy estate or life How hard is it not to delight in the sinne because thou hast profit by it Thus unnatural children may rejoyce in the death of their parents whereby they come to inherit their estates and yet please themselves that they not rejoyce in their death but the profit that cometh thereby to them There are many practical instances in this case and therefore we must look our hearts do not deceive us therein For it is very difficult to have any advantage by another mans sinne or evil and not to have a secret and tacit will thereof And thus much for the Rules about delightfull motions to sin We proceed to a third particular whereby we may sinne against God by these motions of sinne within us and that is When we are carelesse and negligent about them they trouble us not they grieve us not How many are there that regard the thoughts and motions of their soul no more then the fowls that flie over their heads It argueth an unregenerate heart an heart not acquainted with the power of godliness that doth not mourn and grieve under them How greatly was the Apostle Paul Rom. 7. afflicted by them This made him long for Christ and Heaven where he should be annoyed with them no more This negligence about them is that which maketh thee also careless to repress and conquer them They may lodge whole dayes and nights in thy soul and thou never seekest to expel them out Thus thy heart is like the sluggards field full of bryars and thorns Oh that God would give you seeing eyes and tender hearts then you would find that even an hair hath its shadow even the least motion to sinne hath its sting and bitterness with it and above all sinfull motions look to those that arise in thee because good things are urged and commanded to thee For this is the desperate incurable evil our souls that good things stirre up sinfull lusts within us not indeed properly and directly but occasionally and by accident Thus the Apostle bewaileth the motions of lusts within him from this account Rom. 7. 8. Sinne taking occasion by the commandment wrought all manner of concupiscence within him Thus the good and spiritual Law made him more carnal and sinfull And what is more often then to have powerfull preaching godly and wholsome reproofs stirre up the evil motions of men against them Thus the more remedies are applied to us the more corrupt we grow We might be voluminous in this soul-searching point but we must conclude Let the Use be Seeing that a man is thus tempted from his own lust within him we cannot lay the cause on the Devil himself though he be a Tempter then it 's our duty to look to what is within Those embers within us will quickly set all on fire Say not this or that moved me blame not this or that estate but thy corrupt lust within This is as Luther said in Genes Chap. 13. to be like the fool that stood in the Sunne bowed down and then complained his shadow was crooked It is not thy riches nor thy poverty not thy health or sickness no condition or temptation whatsoever but the true proper cause is this maternal lust which lieth in our bosoms How little is this truth attendeth unto with the Pharisees we more regard to cleanse the outside than the inside Mat. 23. 25. The mistake herein brought those many rigid and ausiere disciplinary wayes in Popery as if from the externals we must cure the heart and not by curing the heart thereby cleanse the outwards The Franciscan will not so much as touch silver The Carthusians will not eat a bit of flesh though their lives depend upon it What folly is this Meat and money are the good creatures of God if we do abuse them they are not to be blamed but our corrupt lusts within If a whorish woman wear gold and precious stones to allure others they are in themselves good though she abuse them to an ill end And thus all the comforts and mercies we enjoy are Gods good gifts and it is not the actual abdication of the use of them but the mortifying of our lust within that will make us please God CHAP. III. Of the Combate between the Flesh and the Spirit as the Effect of Original Sinne so that the Godliest man cannot do any holy Duty perfectly in this life SECT I. The Text explained and vindicated from corrupt Interpretations GAL. 5. 17. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would THe Apostle in the verses before admonished them about the use of their liberty that it should not be turned into licentiousness but that they make love the Rule thereof For though in respect of the right of my Christian liberty my conscience is to regard none but God yet the use and exercise of it must be regulated by love and prudence according as the edification of our brother doth require As a remedy therefore to refrain from all excess therein he giveth us an excellent precept with an emphatical Introduction thereunto This I say then that is This is the summe the main the all in all in these cases Then you have the Antidote it self Walk in the Spirit The only way to prevent all those importunate temptations of the flesh is to give up your selves to the Spirit to obtain the direction and illumination thereof as also the inclination and powerfull operation of it whereby we may be established in that which is good To know what is good and then to be inabled to do it
of this to tender hearts and ears is confutation enough For is not this truly and properly to make God the Author of sinne that he put a rebellious thorn in our sides at first and that because we are his creatures made of a soul and a body therefore we must necessarily be divided within our selves Thus those who charge original sinne with Manichism do herein exceed the Manichees themselves for they attribute this evil in a man to an evil principle but these make the good and holy God to be the Author of this rebellion Neither is it any evasion to say This rebellion of the sensitive part is no sinne unless it be consented unto for it is such which is contrary to the Law of God it is to be resisted and fought against And certainly that demonstrateth the evil nature thereof Luther indeed speaks of a Franciscan which maketh this concupiscence to be a natural good in a man as it is in the fire to burn or the Sunne to shine But certainly such qualities or actions are not to be resisted or fought against as these are How can that be good which is confessed to be a sinne if consented unto ¶ 4. VVHen we say the flesh and the Spirit do thus conflict with one another you must not understand it of them as two naked bare qualities in a man but as actuated and quickned from without For the gracious habit in a man is not able to act and put it self forth vigorously without the Spirit of God exciting and quickning of it And although inherent sinne of it self be active and vigorous yet the Devil also he continually is tempting and blowing upon this fire to make it flame the more impetuously So that we are not to look upon these simply as in themselves but as subservient to the Spirit of God and the Devil The Spirit of God by grace in the heart doth promote the Kingdom of God and the Devil by suggestions doth advance the kingdom of Satan in our hearts So that grace and sinne are like the Deputies and Vicegerents in our souls to those Champions that are without us Now because the Spirit of God is stronger and above the Devil therefore it is that the flesh shall at last surely be conquered Nay if the godly at any time fail if sinne at any time overcome it is not because the Spirit of God could not overcome it but because he is a free agent and communicateth his assistance more or lesse as he pleaseth only in this combat the godly are to assure themselves that they shall overcome all at last that the very root of sinne will be wholly taken away never to trouble or imbitter the soul any more ¶ 5. FIfthly In natural and corrupt men there is no sense or feeling of any such conflict They never groan and mourn under such wrestlings and agonies within them and the reason is because they are altogether flesh and flesh doth not oppose flesh neither is Satan set against Satan It is true there is in some natural vicious men sometimes a combate between their conscience and their appetite their hearts carry them on violently to sinne but their consciences do check them and they feel a remorse within them but this is farre different from that spiritual conflict which the Apostle doth here describe and is to be found only in such men who have the Spirit of God No wonderthen if there be so many who look upon this as a figment if so many even learned men write and speak so ignorantly and advisedly about it for this truth is best acknowledged by experience It 's not the Theologia ratiocinativa but experimentalis as Gerson divideth Divinity that will bring us to a full knowledge of this It cannot then but be expected that you should see men live at ease and have much quietness and security in their own breasts thanking God as if their souls hearts and all were good within them all were as they desire it for the strong man the Devil keepeth all quiet flesh would not oppose flesh It is true one sinne may oppose another covetoufness drunkenness and so a man who would commit them both be divided within himself one sinne draweth one way and another sinne the other way but still in the general here is an agreement all is sinne all tendeth one way still and therefore is not like this combate in the Text but of this more in its time ¶ 6. SIxthly In all regenerate persons though never so highly sanctified there is a conflict more or less It is true some are more holy then others some are babes and some are strong men some are spiritual some in a comparative sence are carnal some are weak some are strong and according to the measure of grace they have received so is this conflict more or less Amyraldus a much admired Writer by some neither do I detract from that worth which is due to him doth industriously set himself Constd cap. 7. ad Rom. to expound the 7th of the Romans of a person not regenerated but in a legal state yet disclaiming Arminianisme and Socinianisme which Exposition being offensive and excepted against as justly it might by William Rivet he maketh a replication thereunto wherein he delivereth many novel assertions Among which this may be one That making four ranks or classes of Christians he apprehendeth the first to be such who have attained to so high a degree of sanctification that they consult and deliberate of nothing but from the habit of grace that is within them and that this conflict within a man is rather to be referred to the legal work upon a man then the Evangelical condition we are put into hence he understands this Text not universally but particularly of the Galathians who were then in that state viz. a legal one not Evangelical which he thinketh the next Verse will confirme where the Apostle saith If ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law now of this sort who may be apprehended ordinarily to live without such a combate he placeth the Apostles especially when plentifully endowed with the Spirit of God after Christs resurrection and for Paul he is so far ravished with the Idea of godliness represented in his life that he saith Consid in cap. 7. ad Rom. cap. 74. if God had pleased so to adorne Paul with the gifts of the Spirit that in this life he should attain to that perfection which other believers have only in heaven none might find fault herein The general rules he goeth upon and others though disclaimed by him is because there are many places of Scripture which shew that some godly persons are victorious and tryumphing above this conflict as when this Apostle saith afterwards ver 24. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof and Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the law of sin
Exposition for they acknowledge those workings of the Law in this person against sinne are from the Spirit of God These are the good gift of God and although they come not from the Spirit as regenerating yet as moving and preparing the heart for Regeneration Now will it not be derogatory to say that in this conflict the Spirit of God is overcome in every conflict that at no time he cannot do the good he would This is to make the conflict of a man in this legal estate inferiour to Aristotle's incontinent person who hath only the meer light of natural reason to help him for he compareth Lib. 7. Ethic. cap. 9. intemperance to the disease of a Dropsie or Consumption because incurable but incontinency to the falling-sickness because curable And then because the former is continual the later sometimes only If then in very Heathens whose conflict is only between a natural conscience and their lusts conscience doth sometimes prevail their lusts do not alwayes overcome Shall we think lesse is done by the Spirit of God in them who are in this legal conflict It is true if we speak of perfect obedience to the Law of God so at all times in all things the Law of sinne within a godly man doth retard and make him to come short but then in particular combates there the flesh doth not alwayes prevail only the Apostle instanceth in the tyranny of sinne and not the dominion of grace because hereby he would inform the Jews how much they were to sigh and groan under this burden and thereupon to have higher thoughts of Christ For seeing there were two things that did keep them off from Christ The ignorance of the power of original sinne and a desire to find out a righteousness by the works of the Law The Apostle doth take an excellent way to cure them of these two evils by shewing what deep root original sinne hath in the most holy and how opposite and fighting it is against the grace of God within us insomuch that we cannot have our full comfort but in Christ alone ¶ 2. Reasons for this Exposition THat there is no godly man living free from this spiritual combate because of the flesh which still abideth in him hath been proved by Reasons and Scripture To this Text we have joyned Paul's Discourse Rom. 7. which you heard was to be understood of no other then a regenerate person But because such an Exposition as also the Doctrine of the imperfection of Regeneration may be abused You heard with what limitations that Chapter was to be interpreted though of a godly man It is remarkable what Austin saith in defence of himself expounding this place of a regenerate person whereas he had interpreted it otherwise formerly Non ego primus aut solus c. Lib. 6. contra Julianum lib. 11. He was not the first or only man that did interpret it so Yea he confesseth he understood it of unregenerated persons once himself and his greatest reason was because he thought Paul could not say of himself That he was carnal and sold under sinne but afterwards saith he Melioribus intelligentioribus cessi vel potius ipsi veritati c. The example of this excellent man might much convince but that prejudice doth blind mens eyes Let us see what Reasons are cogent for this Exposition First This is very considerable That the Apostle in the former verses speaking of himself useth the Preterperfect tense speakth of that which was past onely at the fourteenth verse there he changeth the tense and speaketh of the present time which may perswade us that he speaketh of himself what he was once before regenerated and what he hath experience of in himself though sanctified This changing of the time argueth a change also in the person for so his Discourse runneth from the seventh verse to the fourteenth I had not known lust and sinne wrought in me all manner of concupiscence I was alive without the Law once and sinne deceived me c. All these expressions are concerning what was done in him Then at the fourteenth verse with the rest following he speaketh of the present time I am carnal I do that which I allow not c. This altering of the time may incline us to think that it is very probable the Apostle doth compare his former estate of unregeneracy with the present of sanctification that he is now in It is true indeed we grant that the Apostle doth sometimes assume the person of another man he supposeth such a thing in himself which yet we must not conclude to be in him as Rom. 3. 7. For if the truth of God hath abounded more through my life unto his glory why yet am I judged as a sinner Here it is certain he personateth a wicked object or and caviller So 1 Cor. 13. 2. If I have all faith and not charity c. As also Gal. 2. 18. If what I have destroyed I build the same again I make my self a transgressor But who doth not see a vast difference between these expressions and Paul's Discourse in this Chapter For they are spoken hypothetically by way of supposition And therefore every one may perceive that the Apostle doth not intend an absolute speech of himself Had the Apostle used such conditional expressions here then there had been some colour If I do the evil I would not if I do not the good I would if I delight in the Law if the Law of God c. then we might have doubted whether he spake of himself or no. Or had the Apostle as absolutely and peremptorily spoken in those places as he doth here we should have wondred at it Should he after a large Discourse to that purpose have concluded So then I my self distroy what I have built it would have greatly amazed us As for that place insisted upon by so many 1 Cor. 4. 6. These things I have in a figure transferred to my self and Apollo c. and from thence gathering That it is ordinary with Paul by a figure to assume another habit as it were then his own Suppose it be granted Doth it therefore follow he doth here in this place What doth the Apostle never speak in his own person If we will not take this as spoken of himself Why do the Dissentients take the second verse in the next Chapter as to be understood of his own person The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the Law of sinne and death Besides this very place maketh against them for when the Apostle doth thus assume a person he plainly discovereth he doth so you see he doth expresly say that what he did he did by a figure but here is not the least hint given of any such thing there is not a syllable by which we may gather any such transfiguration So that it is a wonder that the Apostle should continue in such a long discourse and that with so much vehemency
therefore Christ and he are compared as the two fountains and universal principles of all For which reasons also it is that the Apostle doth here call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Type of him that was to come Insomuch that we may easily see why there is a difference between Adam and other parents So that although the child dieth not for his parents sins yet he doth and most for Adams Learned men use to illustrate our being in Adam and sinning in him for which our punishment is just and due by that of the Apostle Heb 7. 9 10 where Levi is said to pay Tyths to Melchizedech long before he was born because he was in Abrakams lâ—ins And although it may be granted that there is some disproportion Abraham not being such a common parent to Levi as Adam was to all mankind yet Sceinus his exception is very frivolous The Apostle saith he useth that diminutive phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I may so say which doth demonstrate that it was not a proper saying To this we answer That if you do regard Levies actual paying of Tyths as it he had an actual existence then there was some impropriety which made the Apostle use that phrase but not in regard of the truth of his paying in a moral consideration Thus when we say All sinned in Adam we may well use that phrase and speak thus As we may so say we did all actually will Adam's sinne we did all actually transgress that Commandment Thus it is a diminutive expression in relation to our actual existence but not to our sinne For by Gods Covenant we were looked upon as in him Though I must consess that is a very absurd and forced expositiof Catharinus Opusc de peceâ—t orig whose opinion is That all our original sinne is Adams actual sinne made ours and referreth that expression of Christ to Nathaneel Joh. 1. 49. When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee to Nathaneels being in Adam while he did eat of the forbidden â—ruit which some say was a fig-tree Howsoever it be you see that place in Ezekiel doth not reach to our case in hand 2. That place will overthrow the Socinians themselves also For they grant That by Adam 's sinne death though otherwise natural is now made necessary and penal insomuch that we actually die because of Adam's disobedience And 3. That place in Ezekiel it is commonly interpreted thus The child shall not bear the Fathers siane viz. if he be innocent and not guilty of it as well as his Father I do not discuss whether this be the full interpretation of that place But if it be so then our punishment because of Adam hath no injustice in it because by that actual transgression of Adam we are made sinners as well as he and so have in our selves though new born a just desert of all the wages of sin The Infant dying because of that particular inherent sin which is in him so that it is both Adams and his own in several respects In the second place to answer this Argument take notice That though it be of the will of God that Adams sin is made ours for if he pleased he might have done otherwise Yet we are not to say as the Remonstrants That God imputeth this sinne to mankind meerly because he will as if the thing in it self were indifferent Even as God appointed things should be unclean in the Old Testament meerly and solely from his will because he had appointed so for it is from his Justice also such is the hatred of God against sinne and withall dealing with Adam according to the Covenant of works the curse of that if violated would descend from parents to children as appeareth in Moses his curses pronounced against those that should not continue in the Law it was to them and their children Therefore some learned men expound that passage of Gods saying The child shall not die for the iniquity of his Father which is also mentioned Jer. 31. 29. to belong to the Evangelical Covenant but according to the Legal Covenant the child must suffer with the father and this interpretation they urge because v. 31 32. presently followeth the declaration of Gods Evangelical Covenant he will make with his people But let this prove as it can this we must conclude of That God doth not impute Adams sinne to us meerly because he will but because of his Justice also inclining him thereunto So that the Remonstrants speak too slightly of it as if it were only a dispensative imputation to make way for grace through Christ But I shall hereafter have occasion to speak more fully to this particular as also to the other Objections which may again frequently interpose themselves Vse Of Instruction from all these subtil and specious Arguments against it and that in all ages we may see the subtilty and craft of Satan who would gladly have this Doctrine wholly buried for man is naturally proud and self-righteous hardly brought to be thought so miserable a sinner If therefore any Doctors shall arise that shall likewise plead for such a supposed innocency and freedom How welcome and suitable is this to flesh and bloud Therefore look upon this Doctrine as a Fundamental Truth specially in reference to the practice of godliness and acknowledge it the good hand of God that as there have been any subtil and bold to deny it in any age so he hath raised up eminent and choice men in the same ages to propugn this Doctrine especially do thou often compare thy foul nature with the pure rule of Gods Law Be not like the Elephant which they say before it drinketh bemuddeth the waters that it may not see his own deformity CHAP. X. A Third Text brought to make good this Fundamental Point about Original Sinne improved and vindicated SECT I. JOE 14. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one THough other pregnant Texts in the New Testament may be brought to confirm this Necessary and Fundamental Truth about original sinne yet I shall forbear them till I come to the handling of the Nature of it or what it is For that is not true of the Remonstrants which say Original sinne can be proved only by two or three places although if there were no more it 's certain that out of the mouth of two or three such Divine Witnesses the Doctrine about it may be established I come therefore and select one or two places out of the Old Testament that so you may see this Truth was alwayes acknowledged in the Church of God and that even in the times of the Old Testament where divine light and knowledge was not so plentifully communicated yet there was full and clear evidence about this The Text I have read is deservedly both by the ancient and later Writers esteemed a powerfull place to prove our natural uncleannesse and sinnefulnesse To understand it therefore consider That whereas Job in the former
glorifie and honour God all his whole work and life is now to dishonour him and reproach his holy Name Herein then lieth the misery of this losse of the Image of God that we are fallen from our end we are of our selves salt that hath lost its favourinesse we are fit for nothing but eternal torments SECT III. The Harmony and Subordination in Mans Nature dissolved by the loss of Gods Image IN the second place This losse is to be aggravated because of the Nature of it which is the deordination and dissolution of all that Harmony and Subordination which was in mans nature That admirable and composed order which was in the whole man is now wholly broken so that the mind and will is against God and the affections and passions against them A three-fold Subordination there was in man The first of the intellectual and rational part unto God The mind clearly knowing him and the will readily submitting unto him The second was A regular Subordination of all the passions and affections unto the mind so that there did not from the sensible part arise any thing that was unbeseeming and contrary to the rational Hence it was that the Scripture taketh notice of Adam and Eve in their privitive Condition that though naked yet they were not ashamed There being a full purity and simplicity in their natures whereby nothing could arise to disturb all those superiour operations At sin expresseth it well Even saith he as Paradise the place wherein Adam was created had neither heat or cold but an excellent temperament excluding the hurtfull excess of either so also the soul of Adam was without any excessive passion or inordinate motion but all things did sweetly and amicably concur in obedience to the mind The third and last Subordination was of the body both to the rationall and sensitive principles There was a preparednesse in the body of Adam as there was in Christ whereby he did readily do the Will of God and sound the body not obstructing or weighing of it down Now let us consider this three-fold cord which did bind Adam's whole man unto that which is good which was easily broken and then as when the flood-gates are open the streams of water violently rush forth hurrying all away Thus it is with mankind This order being dissolved the whole heart of man is as unruly as the Sea and whereas that hath its natural bounds Hitherto it shall go and no further The heart of man is boundlesse and hath no stops of it self only the infinite God of Heaven he ruleth and ordereth it as he pleaseth Consider the first breach and mourn under that Is it nothing to have the mind of man which hath as many thoughts almost as there are sands upon the Sea shore and yet not to have one of these rise in the soul with subordination to God What a sad bondage is this that our thoughts are no more under our command than the flying birds in the air Do not either sinfull thoughts or if good come in so unseasonably upon thee that they carry away thy soul prisoner Oh this losse of the obedience of the mind to Gods Law in all the thoughts thereof ought to be no mean matter of debasement Not to find one good thought of all those Iliades Chiliades and Myriades of thoughts which thou hast but to have rebellion in them against God What sad impression should it make on thee In the will also those motion and incompleat velleities yea acts of consent in the will which arise in the soul as so many swarms of flies in the air Are not these also so many armies of lusts against God whereas in the state of integrity there would not have risen the least distemper The second breach Is not that also as terrible and powerfull For are not all our affections and passions like so many dogs to Action like so many Locusts and Caterpillers in Egypt like so many flies and hornets till by grace they are crucified What man is there in whom if God should let any one passion or affection have dominion over him that it would not immediately destroy him So that the power of original corruption is more manifested in the affections and passions than any subject else Lastly The disorder which is in the body in respect of its instrumental serviceablenesse unto God can never be enough lamented Do not pains and diseases in the body much indispose in holy things Do not dulnesse drousinesse and wearinesse hinder a man so that when he would religiously serve the Lord this body will not let him Now all this evil and misery is come upon us because we have lost the Image of God As God in nature doth not suffer any vocuum or redundans so neither did he in respect of the frame of the soul at the first There was nothing defective and nothing excessive SECT IV. The Properties of this Losse THirdly This losse by original corruption of Gods Image is exceeding great in the properties of it For 1. It is a spiritual losse principally and chiefly The loss of Gods favour of all holiness is wholly spiritual and did tend to make a man spiritually happy So that if you should compare all the temporal losses that ever have been in the world with this first and spiritual one it would be but as the mole-hill to an high mountain If then our eyes were opened if we were able rightly to judge or losses for this we should mourn more than for any evil that ever befell us or others 〈◊〉 messengers that came with such sad tidings one upon another is nothing to this message that we bring thee But who will believe this report 2. As it is a spiritual loss so it is an universal loss The whole world is in a lost state by losing this Image of God Every creature hath lost in this universal losse The earth hath lost its fruitfulness yea the whole Creation groaneth and is in bondage subject to vanity because of this Thus all the creatures they lose by it yea every thing in man loseth The mind its light the will its holiness the affections their order and the body its soundness and immortality If all the creatures were turned into tongues they would proclaim the loss of their primitive glory and beauty because of this sinne 3. It 's not only universal But it 's the cause of all the temporal losses that we have For death in which is comprehended all kind of evil came in upon the loss of this Image So that if we are sensible of any temporal loss How much more of this spiritual one which is the cause and root of all Therefore is the body pained therefore it dieth because this Image of God is lost therefore do we loose parents and children therefore is the whole world a valley of tears because of this losse If then any private losse be so bitter unto thee how much more ought this to be which putteth a
bodily part and the soul part and from the soul doth this poison fall to all the inferiour parts Therefore do not only complain of sinne and lust in thy material and sensitive part but look upon the strength and chief power of it as in thy immaterial and soul part for in all these this original lust this Law of sinne doth constantly dwel The Schoolmen they call this Fomes peccati because it doth fovere it 's like the cinders and ashes that keep alive the fire of sin within a man and the more dangerous and damnable it is by how much the more close and latent it is SECT VIII A Consideration of this Concupiscence in reference to the four-fold Estate of man 5. VVE are to consider this concupiscence or concupiscibili'y for we speak of the principle of lusting not actual lusting according to several states that man may be looked upon in AS First There was his Natura instituta his instituted nature at first and that was right and holy There was concupiscence and desiring of the several powers of his soul but in a good and orderly way It was not then as now the Superiora did not turpiter servire inferioribus or the inferiora contumaciter rebel against the superiour parts as is to be shewed in the next place In Adam there was no concupiscence in this sense The inferiour parts though they did desire a sensible object yet it was wholly in subordination and under the command of the superiour It 's true indeed Eve did look upon the forbidden fruit and saw it was good and pleasant whereupon she was tempted to eat of it but this did not arise from any original lust in her but from the mutability of her will being not confirmed in what was good Even as we see the Angels before their Apostasie had sinfull desires in their will through pride and affectation to be higher than they were yet this did not arise from original lust in them Although therefore both Socinians and some Papists do acknowledge man made with such a repugnancy of the sensitive appetite to the rational yea the former making it to be in Christ himself yet this is highly to dishonour God in the Creation of man Oh happy and blessed estate when there was such an universal harmony and due proportion in all the powers of the soul but miserum est illud verbum snisse may all mankind cry out in this particular Secondly There is Natura infecta and destituta infected Nature stript and denuded of all former holiness and excellency and here concupiscence is not onely in us but it doth reign and predominate over the whole man The harmony is totally dissolved and now the choice and sublime parts of the foul are made prostrate to the affectionate part as loathsom and abominable as when the Law forbiddeth to lie with a beast Now the mind and understanding is wholly set on work to dispute and argue for the carnal part Now the motions of the soule beginne in the carnal part and end in the intellectual whereas in the state of integrity the beginning and rise would first have been in the intellectual and so have descended to the sensitive part The motions thereof antecede all deliberation in the mind and a rectified choice in the will Thus the feet they guide the head and in this little world of man the earth moveth and the Heavens they stand still as some fancied in the great world now lust is by way of a Law ruling and commanding all things This is the unspeakable misery and bondage we are now plunged into Thirdly There is Natura restituta repaired nature by grace which the regenerate attain unto and these though they have not obtained concerning lust ne sit yet that ne regnet in them as Austin expresseth it though they cannot perfectly fulfill that command ne concupiscas yet they obey another post concupiscentias ne â—as hence it is because of the actings and workings of original sinne still in the godly they are in a continual conflict they cannot do any thing perfectly they feel a clogge pressing them down when they are elevating themselves as Paul Rom 7. doth abundantly manifest The good he would do he cannot do Original sinne is like that Tree in Daniel Chap. 4. 23. Though there was a watcher from Heaven coming down to cut it down yet the stumps and root of the Tree were left with a band of iron and brass to denote the firm and immovable abiding of it Thus though the grace of God be still mortifying and subduing the lusts of the flesh yet the stumps seem to be bound with brasse and iron to us we are never able in this life wholly to extinguish it Lastly If you consider the perfected and glorified estate of the godly in Heaven then there will be a full and utter extirpation of this original sin The glorified bodies in Heaven though naked shall not be subject to shame and confusion as Adam and Eve were after their fall And among other reasons therefore doth the Lord suffer these reliques of corruption to abide in the most holy that so we may the more ardently and zealously long after that kingdom of glory when we shall be delivered from this sinfull soul and mortal body Then this command Thou shalt not lust will be perfectly accomplished whereas in this life it is a perpetual hand writing against us The Papists indeed do confess our lusts to be against this command but not ut praecipienti but ut indicanti as if God did not so much command us what we should do as by Doctrine inform what is good and excellent in it self Thus rather than they will be found guilty by this Law they will make it no Law and turn it from a precept into a meer doctrinal information But seeing one end of the Law is to convince us and aggravate our sinfulness to make us see our desperate diseased estate that thereby we may flie to Christ as the malefactor to the City of refuge let it be farre from us to extenuate or to lessen our sinfulness The Pharisees of old and all their successors in endeavouring to establish a righteousness by the Law have split themselves on this rock as if the Law had not holiness enough to command them but they were able to do more than that required But whence doth this Blind presumption arise Even from the ignorance of the power of original siane in us SECT IX 6 FRom these things concluded on we may see that the Scripture giveth us a better discovery of our selves than ever the light of nature or moral Philosophy could acquaint us with Aristotle teacheth us out of his School clean contrary Doctrine to this That we come into the world without virtue or vice Even as Pelagius said of old and the Schoolmen though they hold original sinne yet most of them by cleaving to Aristole's principles and so leaving the Scripture have advanced nature to
him as Austin said they did rem scire but causam nescire they evidently saw we were miserable but they knew not the cause of it whereas original sin according to Scripture light though not personally voluntary yet is truly a sinne and maketh a man in a damnable estate Therefore the word original when we divide sinne into original and actual is not terminus restrictivus or diminuens as when we did divide ens into ens reale and rationis but terminus specificans as when animal is divided into rationale and irrationale both properly partaking of the general nature of sinne So that whatsoever apprehensions they had and complaints they made about man yet they did not believe he was born in sinne though experience told them he was in misery The Persians as Plesseus in the above-mentioned place saith had every year a solemn Feast wherein they did kill all the Serpents and wild beasts they could get and this Feast they called viâ—iorum interitum the slaying of their vices By which it doth appear that they had a guiltiness about their sinfull wayes and that none were exempted from being sinfull Yea Casaub Exâ—rcit 16. ad Annal. Bar. pag. 391. speaking of the sacred mysteries among the Grecians the discharging whereof was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affirmeth That therefore they called the scope of those holy actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was as they thought a perduction of the soul to that state in which it was before it descended into the body which he interpreteth of the state of perfection from which we fell in the old Adam so that even in this errour there was some truth which made Tertullian say Omnia adversus veritatem de ipsà veritate constructa esse operantibus aemulationem istam spiritibus erroris Thus you see how the wisest of the Heathens have been divided in this point Some making the soul of a man to come without vice or virtue as a blank fit to receive either Others acknowledging a disease and an infirmity upon the soul yet ignorant of the cause of it neither acknowledging it to be a sinne and so deserving punishment In the second place Although the Heathens did not see this sinne nor could truly bewail it yet so farre many of them were convinced that if they had any sinfull desires or lusting in the soul or any wicked thoughts in their hearts to which they gave consent that these were sinnes and wholly to be abstained from though they did not break forth into act Grotius in his Comment upon the 10th Commandment sheweth out of several Heathenish Writers That all secret lustings of the soul with consent thereunto were were wholly unlawfull Yea as one of them is there said to expresse it they are not so much as to covet a needle the least thing And as for Seneca he hath high assertions about the governing of our thoughts and ordering the inward affections of our souls so as that the gods as well as men may approve us Tully saith That an honest man would do no evil or unjust thing though he could have Gyges his ring which they feigned made a man invisible And this is the rather to be observed because herein they surpassed the Pharisees who though brought up under the Law and had constantly the word of God to guide them yet they did not think any covetings or lustings in the heart to be a transgression of the Law as appeareth by our Saviours information and exposition he gave them Matth. 5. And Josephus is said to deride Polybius the great Historian for making the gods to punish a King meerly because he had a purpose and an intent to commit some enormious iniquity Yea This principle of the Heathens may make many Christians ashamed and be greatly confounded who live as if their thoughts were free and their hearts were their own so that they might suffer any poisonous evil and malicious actings of soul to be within them and to put to check or controll upon them As they matter not original sinne so neither the immediate effects and working thereof Though their hearts be a den of theevish lusts and their souls like Peter's sheet wherein were a company of innumerable unclean creeping lusts yet so as their lives are unblameable they wholly justifie themselves but you are to know that the strength of sinne lieth in your hearts The least part of your evil is that which is visible in your lives SECT III. THirdly We see that original sinne is so hardly discernable that though men do enjoy the light of Gods Word yea and read it over and over again yet for all that they are not convinced of this native pollution We see in all the Heretiques that have been in all ages who have denied this original sinne they were summoned to answer the Word of God Scripture upon Scripture was brought to convince them but a veil was upon their eyes they would wrest and pervert the meaning of it rather than retract their errour so that Scripture-light objectively shining therein is not enough Paul is a clear instance in this he was most exact and strict about the Law yet wholly ignorant of this fundamental truth before he was converted he knew the Commandment Thou shalt not covet yet he did not fully and throughly attend thereunto Hence In the fourth place To have a full and clear understanding of this native defilement we are to implore the light of Gods Spirit The light of the Word is not enough unlesse the Spirit of God be efficacious to remove all errour and impediments as also to prepare and fit the soul to receive it Hence it 's made the work of Gods Spirit to lead into all truth if into all then into this while the eyes remain blind the Sunne with all its lustre can do no good It is true Gods Word is compared to a light and to a lamp but that is only objective without us there must be something subjectively within us that shall make a sutableness between the object and the faculty To be made then Orthodox and to have a sound judgement herein it must be wholly from the Spirit of God For why is it that when one heareth and readeth those Texts We are by nature the children of wrath Who can bring a clean thing out of unclean He adoreth the fulness of these Texts he is convinced of such heart-pollution and blesseth God for the knowledge of this truth But another he cavilleth at the Texts he derideth and scorneth at such a truth Is not this because the Spirit of God leadeth one into the truth and leaveth the other to his pride and blindness of mind SECT IV. FOurthly It is not enough to know this sinne in an orthodox speculative manner to acknowledge it so But we are also in a practical experimental manner to feel and bewail the power and burden of it And happily this may be part of Paul's meaning when he saith He did not
that is the cause of all thy bad fruit A regenerated will a sanctified will would make thee prepared for every good work It is for want of this that all preaching is in vain all Gods mercies and all judgements are in vain Why should not the hammer of Gods word break it Why should not the fire of it melt it but because the stubbornness of the will is so great that it will not receive any impression 't is called therefore a stony heart not an iron heart for iron by the fire may be mollified and put into any shape but a stone will never melt it will sooner break into many pieces and flie in the face Thus the will of a man hath naturally that horrible hardness and refractoriness that in stead of loving and imbracing the holy things of God it doth rather rage and hate with all abomination such things ¶ 7. The Enmity and Contrariety of the Will to Gods Will. IN the second place That imbred sinfull propriety of the will which accompanieth it as heat doth fire is The enmity and contrariety of the will to Gods will There is not onely a privative incapacity but a positive contrariety even as between fire and water Gods will is an holy will thine is unholy Gods will is pure thine is impure Gods will is carried out to will his own glory honour and greatness thine is carried out to will the dishonour and reproach of God Thus as Gods will is infinitely good and the cause of all good so in some sense thy will is infinitely evil and the cause of all that evil thou art plunged into Therefore when the Apostle saith That the carnal mind is enmity against God Rom. 8. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comprehends the actings of the will and the affections as well as of the mind It is enmity in the very abstract so that it is neither subject to God nor can be Oh that God would set this truth more powerfully upon our hearts for what tongue can express the misery of this that thy will should naturally have such irreconcilable opposition and implacable enmity to the Law of God that it should be diametrially opposite to Gods will which at first was made so amicable and compliant with Gods will that there was the Idem velle and Idem nolle Besides many other considerations there are two especially that may break and exceedingly humble our souls herein For 1. Gods will and his law which is his will objectively taken are absolutely in themselvs very good and therefore the proper object of thy will So that if thy will be carried out to any thing in the world it should be carried out to Gods Law above any thing This is to be willed above any created good what soever How is it that thou canst will pleasures profits and such created good things and art not more ravished and drawn out in thy desires after the chiefest good but to be in a state of opposition to this chiefest good to contradict and withstand it this is the hainous aggravation Could there be a Summum malum it would be in the will because of its direct opposition to the Summum bonum Herein mans will and the Devils will do both agree that they are with hatred and contrariety carried out against Gods will If therefore thou wert to live a thousand and thousands of years upon the earth and thou hadst no other work to do but to consider and meditate about the sinfulness and wretchedness of the will in this particular thou wouldst even then take up but drops in respect of the Ocean and little crums in respect of the sand upon the sea-shore But Secondly This contrariety of thy will is not only against that which absolutely in it self is the chiefest good but relatively it would be so to thee and therefore thy contrariety to it is the more unjustifiable What to be carried out with unspeakable hatred to that which would be thy blessedness and happiness who can bewail this enough To have a delight and a connaturality with those things that will be thy eternal damnation with much readiness and joy to will them and then to be horrible averse and contrapugnant to those things which if willed and imbraced would make thee happy to all eternity Oh miserable and wretched man thy condition is farre more lamentable then that of the beasts for they have a natural instinct to preserve themselves and to desire such things as are wholsom to them but thou art naturally inclining to will and imbrace all those things which will be thy eternal woe and misery What is the cause that thy will cannot imbrace the Law of God Why art thou so contrary to it Alas there is no just reason can be given but original sinne is like an occult quality in thy will making an Antipathy in it against the same so that thou doest not love what is holy neither art thou able to say Why only thou dost not love it yea there is the greatest reason in the world and all the word of God requireth it likewise that thy will should be subordinate and commensurated unto it but there is no other cause of this evil will then the evil of it It is evil and therefore cannot abide that which is good ¶ 8. The Rebellion of the Will against the light of the mind and 〈◊〉 slavery of it to the sensitive part in a man THirdly The original pollution of the will is seen in the rebellion of it against the light of the mind and the slavery of it to the sensitive part in a man to the carnal and sinfull affections therein Both which do sadly proclaim how the will is by nature out of all holy order and fallen from its primitive integrity For in the former respect therefore did God give us reason that by the light and guidance thereof the will should proceed to its operations So that for the will to move it self before it hath direction from the mind is like the servant that would set upon business before his master commands him like an unnatured dog that runneth before his master do set him on To will a thing first and afterwards to exercise the mind about it is to set the earth where Heaven should be But oh the unspeakable desolation that is brought upon the soul in this very particular The will staieth for no guidance expecteth no direction but willeth because it will what is suteable and agreeable to the corrupt nature thereof that it imbraceth be it never so destructive and damning God made the mind at first that it could say like the Centurion I bid the will go and it goeth the affections move and they move but now the inferior souldier biddeth the Centurion go and he goeth This then is the great condemnation of the will that though light come in upon it yet it loveth not the light but rebelleth against it and this sinfulness of the will is more palpably
by their own strength reformed their lives and have abounded in justice fortitude and chastity even to admiration Is not that instance of Polemon famous who though a drunkard yet coming to hear Xenocrates his Lecture about temperance was so immediately perswaded thereby that he presently forsook that beastly sinne In this Argument Julian the Pelagian did often triumph But Austin's answer was good and justifiable by Scripture That when they left one sinne they fell into another they did cure one lust by another lust a carnal one by a spiritual one for when they did abstain from such sinnes it was not in reference to God and from faith in Christ but it was either from vain glory or to be sure a sinfull confidence and resting upon themselves and therefore even the Stoicks who pretended the highest viz. That we were to do virtuous actions for virtues sake yet they came too short of the right mark for virtue is not to be loved ultimately for virtues sake but that thereby we might draw nearer to God and be made happy in enjoying of him Therefore the Stoicks opinion did teach a man nothing but self-confidence and self fulness which sinnes are forbidden by the Word of God as well as Epicurean and grosse sinnes Oh then the unspeakable bondage of the will to sinne That as the bird in a net the more she striveth to get out the more she intangleth her self Thus it is with the natural man the more he striveth of himself to come out of this mire the faster he sticketh in Thou then who art a natural man though such a sinne and such a sinne be left yet see if when the Devil was cast out a worse did not come in the room thereof See if it be not with thee as in that representation to the Prophet Thou hast broken a woodden yoke and an iron one is made in stead thereof Thou hast cured a carnal sinne by a spiritual one For you must know That not onely grace doth expell sinne but sometimes one lust may expel another as the Pharisees spiritual pride and self-righteousness did make them abhorre the Publicans sinnes so that even then the natural man cannot but sinne while he is casting off sinne Therefore though unregenerate persons may do that which is materially good and for the substance of the act yet they can never do that which is formally so or as Austin expressed it of old we must distinguish between the Officium the Duty it self and Finis the end of the Duty Now the end of all till regenerated can never be right or pure it never ascends high enough even to God himself because they want faith So that though Aristides was just yet he was not the Scriptures just man that liveth by faith None of the renowned Heathens were chaste by faith charitable by faith temperate by faith and therefore their glorious actions were only splendid glistering sinnes they had a pompous appearance but were indeed real vices which were so farre from profiting them as to eternal happiness that they were an hinderance to them for hereby they trusted in themselves The Epicurean he said It is good for me frui carne To enjoy the body The Stoick he said It was good for me frui mente But David he said It was good for him to draw nigh to God ¶ 13. The more Means of Grace to free us the more our Slavery appears FIfthly Herein is our miserable bondage to sinne manifested That the more we have the means of grace to set us at liberty the more doth our slavery discover it self So that whatsoever good and holy thing we meet with it draweth out our corruption the more This the Apostle complaineth of as part of that captivity he groaned under Rom 7. That the Law which was for good wrought in him all manner of evil Thus the Gospel yea Christ preached is the occasion of more wickedness and impiety in unregenerate men then otherwise they would be guilty of And if this be so though our heads were fountains of water yet we could not weep enough for the guilt and wretchedness we are in by this means for our remedies make our diseases greater light increaseth our darkness life causeth death Insomuch that did not God work by his own power mightily in the use of these means they might be no longer the means of grace but of anger and judgement and the preaching of the Gospel because of the sad effects which it hath through the wilfull indisposition of many who hear it might be as much trouble to us as the presence of the Ark was to the Philistims Therefore the clearer light the more powerfull means of salvation a people do enjoy the more is the impiety and wickedness of such whom grace doth not convert daily increased insomuch that the Gospel shining upon such men is like the Sunne shining upon a noisome dunghill which maketh it the more loathsome How then can there be free-will in a man to good when if left to himself all helps are an hindrance to him and all remedies are more destructive Hence the Scripture calleth it making of the heart fat Isa 6. an allusion to beasts which are prepared to destruction by their best pastures ¶ 14. The Necessity of a Redeemer demonstrates our thraldome to sinne LAstly That the will is inthralled irrecoverably unto sinne appeareth In the necessity of Grace and of Christ as a Redeemer if we were not in bondage what need we have a Redeemer Let not then the common expression in the Schooles be liberum arbitrium but liberatum which is a phrase we seldome meet within them It is good to know the full latitude of that glorious title of our Saviour viz. a Redeemer he is so called not only because he redeemeth us from the curse of the law and the guilt of sinne but also because we were under the power and dominion of sinne and Satan daily fulfilling the works of the flesh so that his death was not only to obtain remission of sinnes but to make us a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 1. 14. And hence also he is said to offer himself a sacrifice that he might present to God a Church without spot or wrinckle Eph. 5. 27 which will be compleatly perfected in heaven To set up free-will then is to pull down our Redeemer as much as we give to that we deny to Christ we make him but a half-Saviour and an half-Redeemer while we maintain that we set our selves at liberty from the power of Satan Oh then let the name of a Redeemer for ever make thee blush and ashamed to speak of a free-will ¶ 15. An Examination of the Descriptions and Definitions of Freedome or Liberty of Will which many give it Shewing that none of them are any wayes competent to the Will unsanctified WE proceed therefore to make a further discovery of the bondage of the will to sinne and that it hath no liberty no power or
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there alwayes it signifieth the holy Ghost I rather therefore think that by the sinne of the world is meant all sinne any sinne committed and repented of for Christ did not only come to take away original sinne as some would have it but all actual sinne as well So that the expression is here used in the Singular number for the greater emphasis Hence Divines have two Rules first Nomen terminatione singulare saepe significatione est plurale a word that hath a singular termination may have a Plural signification as sinne in the Text signifieth all sinne The other Rule is Quando Scriptura sacra singulari numere utitur pro plurali tum saepe plus singularitate significat quam pluralitate when the holy Scripture useth a singular number for the plural then it often signifieth more in the singular number then if it had used the plural as Exod. 15. 22. He hath cast the horse and rider into the sea that is the great company of Pharaoh's hoast we do not then exclude original sin from this place only we say actual sin is also comprehended in this propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ Propos 3. By this then it appeareth That seeing every one hath his proper peculiar original sinne that the Infants sinne is distinct from the parents original defilement and so our inherent pollution doth differ from Adam 's sinfulnesse inherent in him For you must know that the sinne which is original in us was personal in him he did by his own voluntary transgression offend God and so deprived himself of all that spiritual honour and glory God had crowned him with Immediately upon the deprivation of Gods Image there was an habitual inclination unto all manner of evil and this pollution is transfused from Adam to all his posterity not that the same sinne numerically in Adam is communicated to every one descending from him but the same in kind Therefore that Argument which the Pelagians gloried in in their conflict with Austin fetched out of Aristotle That accidens non migrat de subjecto in subjectem is foolish and absurd For we grant that the same numerical sinne which was in Adam is not propagated to us no more then the same personal humane subsistency but as we have an humane being distinct from his so also an original pollution is in every man distinct from that sinfulness in Adam It 's true some learned men have doubted whether we are to conceive original sinne inherent in us as having a distinct guilt from Adam's transgression they think it more consonant to truth if we say that his sinne and our native pollution do make up the formal guilt of it But as we have heretofore shewed that cannot be therefore though we are alwayes to judge of this original pollution with this respect to Adam's sinne that being the original efficient sinne and this the original formal one yet in it self considered there is a damnable guilt and therefore by it alone we are said to be children of wrath Lastly Although original sinne be but one in every man yet we may call it many in respect of the efficacy of it and the innumerable issue that cometh from it So that we may say it is one and many in several respects for all the sinnes of the world have their rise mediately and immediately from it all these springs come from that Ocean Thus Aquinas and the Schoolmen answer that place Psal 51. 5. Although the proper answer to that place is that in the Hebrew it is in the singular number the plural is only according to the Vulgar Translation and if you say How can all these actual sins which are of a contrary nature come from this one spring How can one sin dispose to many contrary sinnes We answered this before and shall adde one thing more to clear it viz. That though one sinne may not dispose directly and per se to all sinne yet per accidens it may by removing that which did keep off all sinne for original righteousness did incline to all duties and thereby preserved from all sinne now original sinne excluding this thereby all sins are committed as temptations and occasions do intervene Even as if a musical instrument be marred every string maketh a different jarre according to the nature of it or as when a mixed body is dissolved every element goeth to his proper place which is Aquinas his similitude of which when we shall shew how original sinne is equal and inequal in all SECT IV. That Original Sinne which is in every man doth vent it selfe betimes WE proceed to the second part in the Doctrine which is That this original sinne which is in every man doth vent it self betimes his Imagination is evil from his childhood We told you the Papists offer violence to the Text when they limit it to a mans youth excluding his childhood as if that were innocent The Rabbins they say as Mercer relateth this evil figment is in a mans heart till he be thirteen year old and afterwards a good figment cometh into a man It is greatly disputed with the Schoolmen When is the time that a child cometh to discern between good and evil for till then they say the Law of God doth not bind and so he is not capable of actual sinnes Some limit the time of actual sinnes to four or six years of age But certainly here cannot be any fixed or uniform Rule given neither may we deny children to be guilty of actual sins before they come to years of discretion Certainly Austin speaketh of his observation of the envy which one child hath while another sucketh the same breast and therefore although we cannot say with the Lutherans That Infants have either actual sinnes or actual graces yet no doubt but actual sins do very early proceed from them neither is the time of their sinning to be limited to the time of their use of reason in a formal and deliberate manner It is true our Saviour took a little child setting him in the midst of the company saying Vnlesse a man become like this child he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. 18. 4. not that such a little child had not both original and actual sins in him but because comparatively to grown persons they are innocent having not the pride and other sins as men of age have therefore it is that we are to be converted and become like little children yea there is no parent that desireth the salvation of his children but he may observe that from the very childhood there is a great aversness to what is holy and a natural inclination to evil Insomuch that all do betimes give a discovery of that imbred and sinfull pollution that is in them Solomon saith That folly is bound up in the heart of a child prov 22. 15. And in Job 11. 12 Man is said to be born like a wild Asses-Colt because of the stupidity and unteachableness that is
time of the cause of such evil customs and examples How came they at first Whence did they arise but from polluted originals This will not answer the Text in hand for that speaketh of the first age before the drowning of the world which yet is called the world of the ungodly 2 Pet. 2. 5. It was the world of ungodly in the first age and still in the later ages it is the world of ungodly Yea this is still applied to that remnant of mankind which escaped the deluge when there were but eight persons Gen. 8. It 's there said That the imagination of mans heart was 〈◊〉 his youth It is strange therefore that if good seed was naturally sown in 〈◊〉 that nothing but tares should come up every where in stead thereof But let us take notice of another place of Scripture confirming the universal overslowing of iniquity and that is David's complaint which he so sadly poureth forth calling upon God to help and to redress it Psal 12. 1. Help Lord for the godlyman ceaseth the faithfull fail from among the children of man They speak vanity every one with his neighbour It is true here are some supposed to be godly and faithfull but they are few comparatively to the ungodly as flowers to the weeds as jewels to the sand on the seashore and those that were so it was not from nature but the grace of God that sanctified and prepared them But if you do regard the general the Psalmist is so affectionately moved with the overflowing of evil that he seeth no help but in God himself and this is the more to be aggravated because the people of Israel were the Church of God they had the Prophets of God they had Gods wonderfull presence amongst them and yet for all that this garden so planted and dressed by God did become a wildernesse If then where there are many external and powerfull means to subdue and conquer that innate corruption yet it break out so violently What if man were left to himself How abominable and vile would he prove And was not this the perpetual complaint of all the Prophets successively that every one did turn aside to their evil wayes that they did preach in vain that there was no soundnesse amongst them a sinfull Nation a seed of evil-doers The more they were stricken the more they revolted The whole head was sick and the whole heart faint as Isaiah most affectionately bewalleth it Chap. 1. 4 5. What a strong demonstration then is this of the imbred corruption of mankind that under all the means of grace doth yet overflow in impicties I shall not mention any more Texts for this purpose The whole scope of the Scripture being to declare mans sinfulness and extoll Gods grace Secondly This universal propensity to sinne in all mankind is likewise attested unto even by the very Heathens It 's true they knew nothing of Adams tall nor of the propagation of this hereditary pollution yet the sinfulness it self they perceived and groaned under it Even Grotius himself who would elude the pregnant Texts of Scripture for original sinne by the Rhetoricians trope of Hyperbole yet doth bring in many passages out of the Heathens acknowledging such a depravation of mans nature out of Heriocles the Philosopher Jamblichus that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it 's implanted and ingraffed in us to sinne Comment in Luc. cap. 2. ver 22. as also De Jure botli as paci lib. 2. Yea out of Aristotle who held this indifferency in mans nature he brings that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is imbred in a man to gain-say reason Thus the very Heathens though they knew not the cause yet could not but confess that vitium ingenita infirmitatis the vitious imbred infirmity that is in every man Yea their Poets have acknowledged better Divinity then some later writers in the Church witness those sayings Quantuns mortalia peceatora coecae noctis habent and another Vitiis neme sine nascitur A third Terras Astraeae reliquit fergning our originals to be of stones Inde genus duri sumus Homines suâ naturâ sunt malis as Plato We might be large also in bringing the witnesses of others Nihil homine miserius superbius said Pliny simul atque ediâ—i sumus and Tully In omni continuò pravitate versamur c. And what is that saying Humanum est errare but according to Divinity Humanum est peccare Thus the light of nature though but like that of the Owl to the Sunne could perceive something in this kind Now this testimony is the more to be regarded because it is so imbred a desire in us to make our selves as lovely as may be and to hide every thing that is deformed Thirdly 〈◊〉 principle also in all Nations to have Magistrates and Laws to have prisonâ—â—â—gibbets whereby punishment may be inflicted upon offenders doth palpably demonstrate what a pronenesse there is in man to sinne For those provisoes do suppose that man doth restrain himself from evil only for fear of punishment If so be that there were such a natural purity in man Why should there be such jealousies such fears of man Homo homini lupus Why are there provided such severe punishments to awe wicked men but that mans nature is out of credit it is supposed to do all the evil it can if it have any impunity Certainly it is not for good that Mastives are tied up that Bears and Lions are kept up in grates This argueth how cruel they would be if let loose Thus also it is with mankind all the severe Laws and punishments which are in all estates established do demonstrate how wild and outragious man is if left alone to himself In his younger yeares he hath the rod when growne up prisons and gallows and in his old age death and hell to awe him against sinne Fourthly The necessary of Education and Chastisement to young children doth also declare that they are prone to vice It cannot be denied but supposing Adam had continued in integrity and procreated children they would have needed instruction and information but then withall it must be granted that this was a meer innocent nesciency in them and therefore as the body had been prepared so the soul without any difficulty would with all aptnesse and readinesse have received all the good seed sown into it whereas now in young ones there is a difficulty to understand holy things they are unteachable and untractable yea there is also a contrariety and an aversnesse to that which is good Now if they were in a meer purity of nature as the Adversaries suggest it they were in such an equal indifferency and capacity of virtue or vice Why should not they need education and Masters to teach them evil as well as good Yea why should they not be more ready to good then evil seeing they say there are igniculi virtutum sparks of virtue lying
hid in the soul which by education and instruction are blown up into a flame So that the Schools which are generally provided for youth do declare That the nature of man of it self will bring forth weeds but there must be much plowing and sowing much cost and labour ere any good seed will grow up That known Text of Scripture will for ever bear record against these patrons of nature Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it away Prov. 22. 15. No lesse powerfull is that counsel Prov. 23. 13. With-hold not correction from the child if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die if thou beat him c. thou shalt deliver his soul from hell Doth not this proclaim that every child is set to damn it self if left alone It is not more prone to runne into the fire then it is to fall into hell and this maketh chastisement so necessary How necessary is it for parents to consider this either education or hell either chastisement or damnation And whence is all this but because of the impetuous nature in every child unto evil As the horse and mule need the bridle being carried out only by sense Thus doth the child need admonition being unteachable and untamable of himself even like the wild Asses colt Job 11. 12. Let parents then take heed of remisness lest their children roaring in hell do continually curse them for their negligence It 's a known example of a young man carried to the place of execution that cried out Non Praetor sed Mater mea duxit ad furcam It was not the Judge but his mother brought him to that shamefull death There was in the Tabernacle Aarons Rod and the Manna which some would have allegorically to signifie the sweetness and benefit of Discipline Iniquity then breedeth within us all the wisest and severest education can no more free a child from its inherent filthiness then Paracelsus could make himself immortal as he fondly boasted if he had had the first ordering and dieting of his body Hence the duty of parents is set down Ephes 6. 4. To bring up their children in the nature and admonition of the Lord. And Solomon who was so tender and onely beloved in the sight of his mother yet his parents were continually distilling wholsome precepts into him as Prov. 4. 3 4 5 implying thereby that none is without ignorance without a proneness to evil therefore is godly instruction so necessary So that the Doctrine of original sinne should greatly provoke fathers and mothers to their duties Every mother should be a Monica to her Austin that we may say It is not possible that Filius tot lachrymarum pereat a sonne of so many prayers and tears should perish Fifthy The difficulty that is acknowledged by ali to do that which is good and holy doth also manifest our propensity to what is evil We cannot apply the Text to that which is good and say Man drinketh down that like water The very Heathens could say Facilis discensus averni and Virtus in arduo sita est Virtue was placed upon an high mountain it was hard climbing up unto it but it was easie to tumble down it is easie to fall down the hill Sinne then being so easily committed and that which is good so hardly performed Doth not this speak plainly that we are corrupted by nature For certainly if the word of God neither in the threatnings or in the promises of it can make us decline from evil and do good when neither hell can terrifie us nor the glorious joyes of Heaven invite us This argueth we are immovably fixed in a way of sinning Is there any command for holy duties Is there any Law enjoyning us to leave our lusts of which we do not say It is an hard saying who can bear it Hence it is that the wisdome of the flesh is said to be enmity in the very abstract against God Rom. 8. 7. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever is either in mind or affections is wholly opposite to the pure Law of God So that this is an evident demonstration of mans vehement inclination to sinne that though God hath set so many fiery flaming swords in the way to stop us from sinne Though Heaven in the glory of it be on one side discovered and hell in all the horrible and dreadfull torments of it on the other side Though many Ministers of God meet thee at the Angel did Balaam to stop thee in the way to sinne yet for all this thou doest despirately and obstinately proceed This maketh it appear that there is a more flagrant appetite to sinne then to any thing else like Rachel crying Give me children else I die so let me have my lusts satisfied else no life no condition is comfortable Sixthly The necessity of Gods grace both for the beginnings progresse and consummation in every good work doth evidently prove our polluted nature We need grace to make us new creatures of spiritually dead to quicken us and enliven us we need grace to breath in the very first desires and groans after any thing that is good Now why is there such a necessity of a Physician if we be not sick Christ is in vain grace is in vain if original sinne with the effects thereof be denied And therefore Austia said Pelagians were but nomine tenus Christiani Christians only in name for they do in effect exclude Christ and evacuate grace Indeed the pure Naturalist Vnam Necessarium Chap 6. pag. 413. affirmeth That the necessity of grace doth not suppose our nature to be originally corrupted for beyond Adam's meer nature something else was necessary and so it is in us This Position is bottomed upon that false and absurd Doctrine invented at first by some Philosophers brought into the Church by Pelagions much insisted upon by Papists That there is a middle state a state of pure nature between sinne and grace That Adam was created in such a condition God superadding the glorious ornaments of grace which upon his fall he was deprived of and so fell into his state of pure nature again and in this middle estate every Infant is now born a state indeed they say of imperfection but not of sinne we need grace to carry us to those sublime and high things which are above nature but otherwise there is no sinne is 〈◊〉 So that it 's the Papists expression That Adam standing and Adam fallen 〈◊〉 only as a man that was cloathed and naked or as the late Author as Moses face while the light did shine upon it and when it was removed As Moses face did remain with its naturals though it had not the super-added lustre Thus say they man is in his state of nature not sinfull neither godly But this is a monstrous figment and he that saith Those who dispute of original sinne do dispute De non ente How much rather may we say that
all those voluminous disputations of this state of pure nature is wholly De non ente there being not the least title in Scripture to establish any such opinion upon it It is true the Author mentioned is often affirming and dictating Magisterially concerning such an estate but never yet hath any Scripture-proof been brought for it some philosophical arguments happily may be Now being this is the foundation upon which many of the Adversaries to original sinne do build I shall in its time and order God assisting raze up this foundation and lay the Axe against the root of the Tree proving that it is both against Scripture and solid reason Lastly That there is such an inclination naturally in a man to sinne and repugnant to what is good a mans own experience may teach him were there no Bible no Orthodox Teachers a mans own heart may convince him of such a perversnesse within him though by natural light he could never discover the spring of it Doth not Paul even while regenerated complain of this Law of sinne within him Rom. 7. Nazianzen maketh sad complaining verses about this constitution of his soul Carmen quartum pag. 69. The conflict with the flesh and spirit which in a most excellent and affectionate manner he doth there bewail And certainly if the Adversaries to this Doctrine find not such a pronenesse in them it is because they are blinded they are benummed within as the Pelagians of old bragged That a man might be without passions and sinfull commotions That they did not pati they felt none of these things but herein they were either horrible hypocrites or stupidly hardened SECT IV. Of the Causes or Fountain of the vehement proneness and inclination to sinne that is in all men by nature and of the false Causes assigned by the Adversaries THus you see this Text hath sufficiently informed us of this Truth That there is in all men by nature a vehement proneness and inclination to sinne To which we have also added many other Demonstrations of this Truth not so much that it is doubtfull and needeth to be proved For the Adversaries do confess it as that thereby we might the more deeply humble our selves under the consideration of it If then there be such constant muddy streames we are to enquire what is the fountain of them And although this Text and many others of the like nature do evidently proclaim it to be that corrupt and unclean heart of a man within that he hath hereditarily and by natural propagation yet because the Adversaries to original sinne will by no meanes assent to this let us consider what are the causes they assign and herein we shall find they do not so much speak falshood as blasphemy against God But before we come to the particular causes specified by them let us in the general consider How many wayes this propensity in mankind may be imagined to proceed for some gave one head or spring to it Others another so that there is not more dispute in Philosophy about the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea or about the rise and spring of Nilus that famous river in Egypt then there is about the original of this impetuousness in man to sinne The effect is acknowledged by all but the dispute is about the cause thereof In the first place therefore Some do assign this inclination to sinne to the souls operations before the body was made For they conceit that the soul had a being before the body and according to the evil or good they had they were adjudged to proportionable bodies and thereby it cometh to pass that some have better tempered bodies then others according to that Rule gaudeant bâ—â—è nati They are to rejoyce that have good and kindly constitutions This was the opinion of the Platonists and Origen who was justly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the monstrous opinions he brought into the Church did proâ—â—â— absurd fancy Yea it is thought that this opinion was amongst the Jewes as seemeth to be implyed in that Question propounded by the Disciples to our Saviour concerning the man born blind Did this man sinne or his parents Joh. 9. 2. as also a passage in the Apocryphal Writer inclineth thereunto Wiâ—â— 8. 20. And being good I came into a body undifiled which Grotius understands of the pre-existency of the soul adding that Synesius though made Bishop yet did not retract this errour But this being so gross a figment it 〈◊〉 not any confutation and the rather because it is a wonder that no such pre-existent soules should behave themselves well for which they should have assigned to them undefiled and immaculate bodies for we believe not the 〈◊〉 mentioned Author in that boast he there maketh A second opinion of the Manichees who feigned two principles of good and evil and this evil principle they made the cause of man whereupon they condemned marriage as unlawfull and made man to be opus Diaboli the work of the Devil This Manicheism the Pelagians have alwayes endeavoured to fasten upon such as do affirme original sinne but it is done maliciously and ignorantly for we say this evil came not into man at first by nature but by the free and voluntary consent of Adam and since man is fallen we do not say sinne is his nature or his substance but that it is a vitious quality adhering thereunto as leprosie to the body 3. There are others who may be reduced to the Manichees and they were Heretiques called Materiaris who feigned an eternall matter that was so evil that the wisdome and power of God could not subdue it but that this malignancy did adhere to it whether God will or no. And this they make the cause of that vicious inclination in man It is say they from the evil matter man is made off which is inseperable from it but this doth grosly contradict the History of the Creation as recorded by Moses Wherein it is said God made every thing exceeding good Gen. 1. 31. Fourthly The Pelagian many Papists and the late Socinian Writers all these attribute it to mans Creation and constitution at first at least in part for they tell us of a state of pure naturals that man hath whereby the appetite doth rebell against the mind for man confisting of a soul and a body hereby say they do necessarily arise contrary inclinations The soul enclineth one way and the body another way and this conflict they are not afraid to say was in Adam himself and therefore God gave him grace as a supernatural and superadded ornament yea and as a remedy to keep the inferior appetite in its order now man being fallen he hath lost those superadditionals but continueth in his meer naturals and these being weak and imperfect are easily carried out to sinne wanting the grace of God to elevate them This is the mystery of their iniquity This is the fountain of all their poisonous impieties and therefore God assisting is
be an occasion to â—ull men a sleep in their lazinesse that hereby they do not content themselves with incompleat and sluggish wishes in the wayes of holinesse If any do abuse this Doctrine to lukewarmness or indulgence in sinfull wayes saying their estate is like Paul's the evil they would not do they do This is not the fault of the Doctrine but either of the Minister who doth not wisely dispense it or of the hearer who doth wilfully suck poison out of the sweet herb Even as the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and Gods grace may be abused to licentiousness It is true that the proper character of Christianity is That it is an acknowledgement of the truth which is after godlinesse Tit. 1. 1. And certainly there is no point may more quicken up to godliness sâ—ur on the most holy to greater growth in piety then this truth about the imperfection of the graces that are in the best and also that we have a treacherous enemy within us the reliques of original sinne which without daily watching and praying will quickly plunge us into confusion Now the Minister of Christ will so handle this Exposition though of a regenerate person very profitably and advantagiously to the increase of godliness if he adde these qualifications to his Interpretation 1. That the evil which this person is said to do is not to be understood of grosse and enormieus crimes but partly of the very motions to sinne within us and sometimes a consent thereunto and it may fall out so as to be an acting of them in our lives but this is not of grosse sinnes or if of a foul sinne yet not continued in but with repentance and greater hatred recovered out of it Unlesse the Preacher do thus limit his Exposition he leaveth the battlements without rails he doth not fence against the pit wherein some may fall Let no man therefore think that this passage of Pauls is to be extended to grosse sinnes as if many prophane sinners who sinne and their consciences check them and then they sinne again and have remorse again could take any comfort from these places as if they might say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me The evil that I would not that I grieve for in the temptation I do Oh take heed of abusing the holy Word of God to such corrupt ends Austin some where speaketh to this occasion when this part of Paul's Epistle was read I fear saith he left this may be ill understood but let none think as if Paul 's meaning was he would be chaste but he was an adulterer he would be mercifull but he was cruel c. Thus it would be very dangerous to interpret this passage of grosse sinnes and yet it cannot be denied but that men who sinne grosly yet with some remorse and grief of conscience are apt to cover themselves with these fig-leaves and think this is sanctuary safe enough to runne unto that though they do sinne yet it is not with full consent and delight Arminius affirmeth in cap. 7. ad Rom. pag. 753. as he saith Verè sanctè That he had sometimes the experience of this that when some have been admonished that they would take heed of committing such a sin which they knew was forbidden by the Law They would answer with the Apostle To will was present with them but they knew not how to perform what they willed Yea he addeth He had this answer from one not when the sinne was committed but when he was forewarned that he should not commit it But the same Author goeth on and saith he knew both men and women young and old who when he had explained this Chapter in the sense he defendeth did plainly confess to him that they hitherto had been in this opinion that if they committed any sinne with reluctancy of their mind or omitted any duty the same regreeting of them they were not greatly to trouble themselves or grieve in this matter seeing they thought themselves like Paul therein and therefore gave him hearty thanks that he delivered him from that errour by his interpretation But what needeth all this if any read Calvins or other Expositions upon this place might they not have been fully satisfied that such persons offending in that manner viz. sinning having only terrour and contradiction from their conscience against the sinne they commit but their hearts otherwise carry them out to it do no wayes agree with the person here described whose heare and will is said to be against sinne as well as his mind and conscience We must not therefore understand it of gross sins especially of a continual custom therein No doubt but David did commit the adultery and murder he would not have done No doubt when Peter denied Christ he could say the evil that he would not do that he did but this was in suddain temptations This was not often or customary therefore they did recover out of them with bitter tears and sorrow We must therefore understand it chiefly of the motions and lustings of the heart to sinne and oftentimes a consenting thereunto yea and in lesser sinnes an acting thereupon so that it is no more in sense then what the Apostle Jam's saith In many things we offend all Chap. 3. 2. So that howsoever the Jesuites and Arminians would make Austins and the later Expositions to differ as if Austins were more innocent because he understood it only of motions to sinne which the godly man did suffer against his will within him but the later apply it even to actions yet who so diligently compareth them together cannot find any real difference for the summe of their Exposition is That the Law requiring such a perfect and pure holiness that is doth not allow of the least spot or blemish the most godly do find themselves so depressed and weighed down with that remainder of corruption that is within them that they come exceeding short of that excellent and perfect holiness and therefore do abhorre and loath themselves and judge themselves miserable while they carry about with them such a body of sinne Secondly and lastly This Exposition will be advantagiously managed for godliness 〈…〉 also inform That Paul doth not here speak of every particular temptation as if in every conflict he had the worse and the flesh had the better but he speaks of good and evil in the general and that in the whole course of his conversation In the general his heart was set upon the good commanded and against the evil forbidden but yet he could never attain to his fulness of desire though in several combars the spirit might and did conquer the flesh And certainly the Arminians who will hold us to the rigid letter as if this person never had he better no not at any time in any sinne must take heed of that fault they charge upon us viz. that they be not injurious to the grace of God even according to their own
is the string to her feet This made Paul cry out of it as a weight lying upon him Rom. 7. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death yea Heb. 12. 1. it is called a weight now as that must needs be an impediment to any who run in a race no less burdensome is original sinne to a godly man in his way to heaven Fourthly It hinders the perfection of grace cooling and remitting the fervour and zeal thereof and herein chiefly the mischievous effect of original sinne is discovered it maketh the soul halt in his progress it allayeth the heat of grace it is like smoak to put out the fire The adversaries to this Truth say it is not intelligible how the Spirit can make us will one thing and the flesh another seeing a man hath but one will and he cannot velle nolle will and nill at the same time about the same object But they may know that by such expressions are chiefly meant That the hearrt of a man through this flesh within him is very faint and remiss in all its actions about that which is good when he doth will it it 's so inefficaciously so slluggishly so imperfectly that it may be called a nilling as well as a willing and this is the sad issue of original sinne it maketh us go halting to the grave it abateth that activity and zeal of spirit which ought to be in holy things Fifthly The flesh hindereth absolute compleatness of grace by soiling debasing and infecting our holy duties It is as some mud cast into a pure stream it is as some poison mingled with wine and for this it is that the most holy have prayed God would not enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal 143. 2. For this the Scripture compareth even our righteous actions to a menstruous cloath Isa 30. 22. This is the frog that is drawen up with the pure water out of the well though our godly duties are not sinnes yet they are sinful they are damnable in themselves and therefore need the mercy of God to forgive the imperfections adhering to them Lastly The flesh is an hindrance in the way of grace by dividing and distracting of the heart In the stare of integrity when there was no such intestine warre then the whole strength of the soul emptied it self one way but now though grace hath for the main setled our hearts upon God yet the flesh interposeth that propoundeth other objects and thus because the pool runneth into divers streams it is not so full and plentifull so that it is impossible there should be any perfection where there is any distraction or division and therefore we may justly expostulate with all those who plead they are without sin Whether they never have so much as one wandring thought in any holy duty they go about If they should say they have not it is our duty to flee from such persons as are puffed up with such self-love and self-confidence that they know not or feel not what they are or do Such are like those distracted persons that conceit themselves Kings and Emperours when at the same time they are miserable and indigent Now by these several actings of the flesh within us the godly man may perceive what little cause he hath to trust in himself thou canst not be secure while in this mortal body the wound original sinne hath given thee is not wholly cured sometime or other this close secret enemy may rob thee of thy Pearls and Jewels if thou art not diligent in praying and watching over thy self In the next place I shall proceed to a second Proposition and therein shall answer such general Objections that may plausibly be urged against the actings of original sinne within us and thereby against the imperfection of regeneration for some have thought it no dangerous errour to plead for a perfection even in this life Therefore Arminius his heires Epistola dedecati ad cap. 7. ad Rom. say that the unseasonable and excessive urging of the constant imperfection of regenerate persons and the impossibility of keeping the Law in this life without adding what the godly might do by faith and the Spirit of Christ such a thought as this might easily enter into the hearts of the hearers that they can do no good at all and they adde the ancient Church thought not the question about the impossibility of the law to be reckoned among capital ones which is apparent say they from Austin which wisheth the Pelagians would acknowledge it might be performed by the grace of Christ and then there would be peace between them But certainly Austin may best explain himself De perfectione justitiae ad Caelestiam ad finem where he saith he knoweth some who hold there either have been or are some that were without sinne Quorum sententiam de bâc re non audeo reprehendere quanquam nec defendere valeam as he dared not reprove it so he could not defend it This is his modest expression but if Austin could not defend it I do not know who in that age could seeing Austin by the gloss in the Canon law hath justly the preheminence above all the Ancients for Disputations as Hierom for the Tongues and Gregory for Morals and certainly the places brought to prove this point do argue that no man is without sinne that none can be justified if God enter into judgement It was also Pelagins boast in that Epistle ad Demetriadem for it 's taken to be his That in the first place he doth enquire what men are able to do how farre their own power extendeth as if this foundation were not laid there could be no exhortation to godliness Hence the Pelagians charged it as a consequence upon the Doctrine of original sinne that it would work in men a despair about perfect righteousness lib secundo coutra Julianum in initio But of late Writers setting aside Papists Castellio for we must not call him Castalio seeing he bewaileth his pride Castel Defens page 356. for assuming that name to him from the fountain of Muses doth with the greatest earnestness propugn the perfection of regenerate persons and immunity from sinne understanding that prayer for pardoning of sinne like as that duty to forgive our enemies viz. when we have them This Writer calleth that question Whether a man may by the Spirit of God perfectly obey the law a very profitable question but addeth that the errour on the right hand viz. that we are able perfectly to fullfill it is farre less dangerous then the contrary for God will never find fault with that man who doth endeavour for a perfect obedience and that by the help of God De obedientiâ Deo praestandâ pag. 227 228. but his arguments are as weak as his affections are strong in this point ¶ 5. Objections against the Reliques of sinne in a regenerate man answered LEt us examine what
a two-fold part of the soul the rational and that which hath not reason or which doth repugn reason The rational part saith he Lib. 1. Ethic. cap. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth provoke and incite to what is good but the rebellious part gain-sayeth Even as in the paralytical parts of the body when a man would move such to the right side they fall to the left side Now this Discourse of Aristotles we acknowledge as having some truth for even Heathens have by nature their consciences accusing or excusing of them Rom. 2. 15. But Papists and others do horribly perveâ—t this when they bring it into Divinity and so put a new piece of garment into the old thereby making a rent because there is no agreement with them otherwise we grant such a combate yea it is in too many men whose convictions are strong but their lusts stronger and no doubt this is in a regenerate person so farre as nature still abideth in him but such mens dislike and renitency of conscience doth not excuse them though they be not such great sinners as those that sinne without any remorse yet their condition is damnable Though such have many good sentences and you shall hear many good speeches come from them yet they are still under the bondage of sinne for though they have a knowledge condemning their sinne yet it is but universal when they come to the particular then they are carried away or their knowledge is but habitually in them not actually as with drunken men or men in a sleep so that the good sayings they utter they have no practical application of them and therefore compared by Aristotle Lib. 7. to a City which was derided by this saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The City consulteth and adviseth that yet regardeth not Laws or like such who did utter Empedocles his grave sentences A sad thing it is And oh how often is it for some men to speak excellent religious truths in discourse of which they have no practical power Solomon hath two excellent expressions to this purpose Prov. 26. 7. The legs of the lame are not equal so is a parable in the mouth of fools As the legs of a lame man being not equal make the going uncomely so it is when a man hath good speeches but evil actions Again vers 9. As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard so is a parable in the mouth of fools As a drunkard feeleth not the sharpness of a thorn running into his hand so neither doth such an incontinent person the power and efficacy of the most excellent and savoury truths which he speaketh yet all the while such convictions of light are upon man there is the more hope and he may be the more easily cured insomuch that he is not as evil as a man habituated and sensless in his sinne Hence Aristotle saith That though an incontinent person doth the same things with an intemperate yet he is not an intemperate person as was said of the Milesians They are not fools but they do the things that fools do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 7. Ethic. cap. 9. ¶ 9. Another Combate in those within the Church which yet may not be godly IN the second place There is a second Conflict that is in those who are in the Church of God and are in a preparatory way to conversion These besides the natural light of conscience have the supernatural light of the Word which doth powerfully awaken them enlighten and humble them so that they feel a troublesome warre within themselves yet for the present obtain not that grace which setteth them at full freedom Many men before their conversion have been in this soul-fight a long time Prudentius the Christian Poet hath his Psycomachia wherein some sins and virtue as chastity and uncleanness covetousness and liberality are brought in combating with one another And thus many times some godly persons in their unregenerate time have been entangled in some special lust or other There are many assaults and skirmishes ere the work of grace doth take full possession Austin doth excellently declare this in his own experience lib. 8. Confess Velle meum tenebat inimicus meus c. My enemy did take hold of my will and made a chain thereof whereby he was fast bound and hereupon he did sigh and groan to be delivered being ligatus non ferro alieno but ferreâ meâ voluntate bound with his iron will In these aestuations of spirit he lay wearying himself till at last the grace of God came in with full power upon him making a through change cutting off the fetters that were upon his soul ¶ 10. Of the Combate in the godly between the Flesh and the Spirit and how it may be discerned from the former IN the third place There is the Combate in regenerate persons between the work of grace and the flesh in them The former was only between the natural conscience and lust The second between the Spirit of God but moving and working only in a man and his corruption The last between the Spirit of God inhabiting and dwelling in a man and the flesh in him So that if a Christian ask How shall I know whether the combate I feel be between the Spirit and the flesh or conscience and my lust Though practical Divines give many differences yet briefly in these three particulars one conflict may be discovered from the other 1. From the principle and root In the godly this ariseth from a total renovation or the Image of God placed in a man In the other it is only from partial illumination or natural light 2. In the motive This combate in the godly is upon holy grounds out of hatred to sinne out of love to that which is holy In the other it is out of terrour and slavish fear it is because they would not be damned it is because of horrour upon them not any delight in God 3. In the manner In the other the fight is between two parts of the soul only the mind against the appetite or if there be any work upon the heart it is but transitory and vanishing whereas in the godly man this combate is universal he hath will against will love against love as well as his mind against these Thus Austin ibidem speaketh of the two wils he had his carnal will and his spiritual will his meaning is that because his will was not so full and efficacious as it should therefore he had two wils as it were Non igitur monstrum c. saith he It is not therefore a monster partly to will and partly to will but the sickness of the mind that cannot rise up fully to what is good and therefore there are two wils because one is not wholly and fully carried out to that which is good This expression of Austin fully answereth that Objection when they demand How can the will will and nill at the same time It is a contradiction
which would have redounded to the dishonour of God his maker neither could it so well be said By one man or by the Devil death came into the world as by God who is supposed to make man in such a mortal and frail estate But I proceed to a second Argument and that may be drawn from the commination made by God to Adam upon his disobedience compared with the execution of this sentence afterward which might be enough to convince any though never so refractory The threatning to Adam we have recorded Gen. 2. 17. where God prohibiting him to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil confirmeth this Law with a penalty viz. That in the day he did eat thereof he should surely die dying thou shalt die The gemination is to shew the certainty as also the continuance or it So that Socinus and others who would not understand corporal death in this place as being from the natural constitution of a man and so would have been had there not been this commination doth joyn too much with the Devil in this business for his endeavour was to perswade the woman that this threatning was false and that she should not die death should not be the punishment of her transgression But what need we any clearer place then this divine commination Doth not this necessarily suppose that if Adam had not transgressed he should not have died and so by consequence have been immortal it being not possible for death to come in at any other door but that of sinne To threaten a mortal man with mortality had been absurd or to make his natral condition a punishment for then it would have been a punishment to be made a man if made mortal The Socinians therefore to elude this would not understand by death the separation of the soul and body but eternal death or as they say at other times a necessity of dying but a necessary death and eternal death are absurdly made parallel by them For beasts are under a necessity of death yet cannot be said to partake of eternal death especially the godly they cannot but die yet they are absolutely delivered from eternal death We must therefore take death for corporal death not but that the death of the soul by sinne here and eternal separation from God hereafter is to be included herein yet this temporal death is also a great part of the penalty here threatned which may be evinced by these three reasons 1. Moses is relating in an historical manner what was done to man in the beginning Now in an historical Narration we are not to go from the literal meaning unless evident necessity compel much lesse may we do so here when we have the Apostle acted by the same Spirit of God as Moses was in being Penman of the Scripture attributing our corporal death to Adam For no doubt when Paul wrote this Text In Adam we all die he had this historical relation made by Moses in his mind 2. The sentence and execution of it must be understood in the same manner Now it 's plain that in the execution of it mentioned Chap. 3. 19. corporal death is meant because Adam is thus told That dust he was and unto dust he should return 3. It must be meant of temporal death because this alone and not eternal death doth belong to all mankind For although at the day of judgement it is said some shall not die yet that suddain change made then upon them will be equivalent to death Thus you see the threatning made to Adam at first doth abundantly confirm this truth There is one doubt only to be answered If death be meant in that sentence how then is it that Adam did not immediately die How is it that he lived many hundred years afterwards To this some say That the restriction of time viz. the day is not to be made to the time of eating as if at that day he should die but to death as if the sense were thou shalt die one day or other thou shalt be in daily fear of death But if this be disliked then we may understand it of a state of death that day he did eat thereof he became mortal for every day is a diminution of our life As a man that hath received a deadly wound we say he is a dead man because though he did linger it out yet all is in a tendency unto death Now this will appear the more cogent if you take notice of the execution of this sentence mentioned Gen. 3. 17 18 19. where the ground is cursed and man also adjudged to labour and wearness all the dayes of his life even till he return to the ground out of which he was made But here the Socinian thinketh he hath an evasion Death saith he is not here made a curse but only it 's the term how long mans curse shall be upon him It is not poena but terminus saith he for it is said he should be under this labour till he did return to the ground but if we consider the sentence before-mentioned it is plain it is a curse So that in this place it is both a curse and a terme putting an end to all the temporal miseries of this life though to the wicked it is the beginning of eternal torments ¶ 3. THe third Argument for our mortality and also actual death by original sinne is taken from those assertory places which do in expresse words say so Not to mention my sext which hath said enough to this truth already We may take notice of other places affirming this And certainly that passage of Pauls Rom. 5 12. may presently come into every mans mind By one man sin entred into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned It is true we told you Calvin maketh the Apostle to speak of spiritual death here as in my Text of temporal death which the coherence also doth confirm but though that be principally intended yet not totally Even temporal death is likewise to be understood as being the beginning and introduction to eternal death if the grace of God doth not prevent We have then the Apostle attributing death not to mans creation at first but to his disobedience Neither is this death upon men because of their actual sinnes but because of Adam's disobedience by whom we are made sinners yea in whom we have sinned That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is diversly translated and much contention about it viz. whether it should be rendred in whom or causally for as much It is true the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as learned men observe is used in the New Testament variously sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 5. 5. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 10. 9. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 3. 16. and otherwise but for ought I can observe it may very well be understood for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mark