he censure them for such that cannot be but a calumnious aspersion that prae-occupates the Law and precedes the Divine Imputation let him say how were they unnatural but because done against the Law of Nature and why vile enough but because that pure and perfect law was sufficient so to convince them Original Sin could never have been called so but that there was a Law of Original righteousness that went before it how then can actual sins be said to foregoe a Law For they did do actions personal actual Sins even these done and yet not imputed Oh what an imputation were this to the eternal Law the Law of Nature of right reason and true Conscience But will this salve it to say they were not yet so imputed that will not do it if he so means that nothing was imputed from the first upon their Original account to the eternal and internal but afterwards upon the external publication of the Law of Moses these things were imputed to them upon their personal account nor will that do it if he pretends these things were not imputed even unto death For it is out of question that Moses Law as to the morality of it added no new vertue goodness truth obligation imputation or penalty which was not in force before from the eternal and internal Law of God and Nature of which Moses Law was no more but the External publication but to speak of actual Sins being in Men and yet not imputed by God and of Origiginal Sin deputed to deadly punishment and yet not imputed by a Law I say to speak to such purposes is such an imputation to the Divine Attributes as I need not now to say Verse 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that is to come NEvertheless Death reigned from Adam to Moses But for all that the Law of Moses was not yet given or promulgated to a peculiar people Death notwithstanding reigned throughout the whole world For all that time comprehensively and inclusively from Adam his Fall his deprivation of the Image and depravation of Nature Till Moses his publication of the Law written in Tables of stone and so during that whole Oeconomie or dispensation even until Christ and the Gospel of his Grace by whom alone all that beleeve are justified from all things both Sin and Death from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses And therefore till then terminally and exclusively Death reigned and Sin likewise because the dominion and tyranny of these two always goe together Now after the duration the main thing remarkable is the domination or Deaths reigning which cannot exactly be but as she is understood in her whole law and power and in their full latitude or extent sc. in the forcible denunciation and infliction of Death temporal spiritual and eternael For where she is so restrained as to goe no farther than the corporal only so far is she then from any thing like to reigning that she is now as it were swallowed up in Victory but take her in her utmost Tyrany and she reigned from Adam to Moses that is for Original as well as for actual sin for consider her subjects and her power and authority was Even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression That is over Infants whose reason and discretion will and affections had not yet made them ripe enough for action and imitation and therefore they had not sinned actually or in their own persons but Originally or in their first Parents loyus Adams similitude likeness or Image in which he begat his Posterity Gen. 5. 3. was that of Original sin because it was contradistinct to that image likeness or similitude in which God had made him Gen. 1 26 27. which was that of Original Righteousness And to Sin after the similitude of Adams transgression is to imitate him follow him make him our example and our selves altogether like him and therefore not to have sinned after that similitude is not to have done so Now then to construe it with this Author of sinning not so grievously or of sinning lesse than he did is to make it come little near to nay make it fall very much short of sinning after the similitude of his Transgression or according to the proportion of his prevarication To sin less is not to sin according to the aequallity But a man may sin less by much and yet sin after the similitude nevertheless He that ere this started this very notion non peccaverunt ad illius similitudinem hoc est non tam capitaliter non perinde graviter peccaverunt arque ille applies it rather as others besides him do to the Gentiles than to the Patriarks and indeed in such a construction the Gentiles should sin lesse than the Patriarks as not having the Law or the like means they had But if the same Man had been taken up or followed in his other suggestion regnavit mors in simitudine the reigning of Death had so been made as vain a semblance and as light a shadow as some would make that of Original Sin But they who suggest that this sinning after the similitude is neither to be understood of sinning after an internal principle nor yet after an external example but only upon and after the direct expression and express direction of a precept These ere they are a ware do take from the Actual and add to the Original while they thus exempt all before the written law as likewise all Heathens to this day from sinning after Adams similitude or rather doe thus deny to most men Sin both Original and Actual but though we may make Adam a Sin similitude to our selves in matters past yet it hath pleased God to propose him as a comfortable type for the future Who is the figure of him that was to come Behold here 's a typical promise sufficient to satisfie all querulous complaining and to prevent all quarrellous charging God foolishly in calling any of his Articles to question in the case Since Adam who received Gods similitude not for himself alone but for all his posterity after him had now forfeited the same both for himself and them all and had now begotten them in his own similitude of prevarication and defection and in that very similitude they were now found and so left left and that justly to the Tyranny of Sin and Death yea even those who had not as yet according to all actual circumstances sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression Neverthelesse they were yet in the estate of Natural corruption and by that Nature worthily born Children of wrath but what if they had already sinned after that similitude and had now made him their Example to sin and to die by yet hath God of his good pleasure made him the Type or figure of Christ intimating that they who are elected
we our selves doe it or else give occasion for others to quarrel at them For that all have sinned This clause thus translated was greedily snatch'd at of old to extenuate and excuse the severity of Deaths universal passing and not only so but to alter and divert the cause and guilt from the Original Sin to the Actual For this cause the Antients did either reject this Translation or did not so wel accept it But I am to speak of this our Paraphrast whose words by reason of this Translation are imposing on the Apostle if he means eternal Death he must not mean that it came for Adams sin but in as much as all men have sinned that is upon all those upon whom eternal death did come it came because they also have sinned and again in passing on us For that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams Sin pas'd upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all but yet death descended also upon Adam's posterity for their own Sins for since all did Sin all should die His also once and again seems to admit of original sin for her share in this reckoning but his in asmuch quite thrusts it out brings in actual sin in its stead Actual sin I say is obtruded and Original sin excluded at least for propriety for guilt for imputation for likeness for equality Yet I shall not therefore reject this Translation because I see our Church hath accepted it and shall hope to make it stand good in this sense For that all have sinned that is sinned Originally although not Actually sinned naturally in Adams Sin although as yet not personally or in their own and am confident he is not ignorant I can find Abettors for this exposition amongst the reformed and Orthodox Expositors far before him But Sir if you will be pleased to look upon the Margin which I suppose he winked at know it is pointed at by our Church as a note of equal indifferency and authority and there you find in whom all have sinned this speaks plainly of sinning not actually in our selves but originally in Adam and this Translation is every whit as much and rather more congruous to the Original Text for my part I rather embrace this latter Translation with most Translaters or Interpreters old or late And with them conceive it to be the safer as not giving such way to the Errors of the Pelagians old or new Nay I hold it to be the sounder and more consonant to the very Letter for why should {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} be translated so flatly in the Neuter Gender when 't is found so Emphatically in the Masculine being it may with so close and so apt Concotd be referred to the One Man spoken of before for construe it in the Masculine and the Relative fairly agrees with the proximate and eminent Antecedent but take it in the Neuter and then the Relative is without any Antecedent at all or else must be turned into some obscurer and less significant part of speech Erasmus who labours like a Critick to draw it this other way would not allow of St. Augustines referring it to Sin because of the different gender though he confesses it to be the same in sense to say in which Man or in which Sin As for Erasmus whom all have occasion to honour from the Cradle to the Crown of learning him this Author recommends to us more precisely to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best Expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediate Successors hath brought forth as for the learned Grotius whom he reckons with him I only say thus much As he was a most eminent Adversary to the Socinian so he was sometimes a not approved Advocate of the Arminian both which are reproved for their opinions about Original sin But on Gods name let him add all he can to Erasmus yet I would not have him detract any thing from St. Augustin which thing was sometime charged upon Erasmus himself both are to be mentioned with honour as the Worthies of their Ages And therefore all he hath said had it been more should have past for me without exception had he spoken it at another time and upon another place For upon on this place he cannot but know That Erasmus hath not only been suspected but taxed even by learned men of his own time and religion for more than I now think fit to express only as to the clause nay and whole verse in hand Erasmus is much contending for a Tropologie and peradventure hence it was that he hinted his Metonymie But for all his Rhetorick he turns Grammarian and plaies the Critick betwixt {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and will hardly be perswaded of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} for {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Dative Case yet at length acknowledges Because the use of Greek Prepositions are so various I dare not affirm that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is no where joyned with a Dative Case where one thing is declared to be in another like as the Tree is in the seed A most apt similitude to illustrate our being in Adam and our sinning in him too Were it not for this his confession places of such construction were easie to be produced but I spare them as likewise his propter unum his pervasit his quatenus peccavimus which also might be of a facile connivence were it not in case of dangerous consequence and contention besides my task is to pursue not his but this Authors paraphrase Verse 13. For until the Law Sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no Law FOr until the Law Sin was in the world That is from the beginning of the world all that time which went before until that very period wherein the Law was externally promulgated Sin was nevertheless even all that while in the world For the Apostle so speaks now with intent to occur to a certain objection an Objection not so much of mens Mervail or Scruple but rather of their Petulancy and Cavillation an objection that indeed hath been always but too much inculcated by the Adversaries of Original Sin Thus Where there is no Law there is no transgression But there is no Law given against Original Sin Ergo This is it which the Apostle here prevents by saying Sin was in the world during all that space of time which went before the giving or promulging of the Law of Moses notwithstanding it was not a Sin without a Law but so it was by vertue of the Law of Nature the rule of original righteousness the dictates of right reason the eternal moral Law the Law written in Mens hearts before it was written in Tables of stone For Original sin was not so much forbidden convinced condemned by
places besides For as life and death go all along the Antithesis throughout for the express reward and punishment so doe Sin and Righteousnesse the offence and the Free gift distinctly as the vile anomie or obliquity or as the holy vertue or efficacy 3. The word Condemnation is by the Apnstle himself limited to signifie Temporal death no such matter by his favour for most certain it is condemnation is here opposed by him to the Iustification of life and that signifies life both spiritual and eternal and to take away the extent on either part is rather to make the Apostle limit the excess on the best part He must mean Temporal death for eternal death did not passe upon all men Yes that it did even passe upon all men from the just sentence though as he knows who said it did not invade all men to an uttermost Execution And if he means eternal death he must not mean that it came from Adams sin but in as much as all have sinned c. well corrected of himself but ill restrained by him Yea indeed but he must and very well he may not only in as much as but in whom all have sinned Even originally in his loyns although not actually in themselves If all have sinned in him an eternal death is little enough But if not even a Temporal death is too much 4. The Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent why not one as well as the other imputed and inherent though they may be of some diverse consideration yet are they not of such contrariety that they may consist together and that in every kind of sin As actual sin is inherent and yet nevertheless is imputed so original sin may be imputed and yet inherent nevertheless will the imputation which is in respect of a Law take away the inhaesion of the fact or crime which is with respect to the person Neither doth the Apostle speak here directly of Sin imputed but of Sin not imputed And he knows that hath been construed by many for man's not so reputing it through want of knowledge or conscience of a law although it was never so much inherent 5. The Apostle says by the disobedience of one man many were made Sinnere so that it appears that in this we have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally inherently Whatsoever the appearance may be to us yet this is of no consequence from the words Because Adam is here often called one and one man not so much to distinguish or to divide him from us but to compare and parallel him with Christ And though it be called one man's disobedience in regard of the individual and circumstantial Act yet in regard of the specifical Act of the Common Nature the common union comprehension representation it was indeed all our act For so all have sinned and are made Sinners sc. inherently The Formality of Sin whether original or actual is anomie and obliquity to the Law of God and so it is imputed but with all it is ataxie and deformity of our nature and so it is inherent Neither was Adams Sin efficiently his persons only but his natures also and so it was ours And for Original Sin Adam's person was but the External efficient but the internal efficient was that law of corrupted Nature whereby a corrupt thing deserted did beget a corrupt thing like it self so that that which is born of flesh is flesh But for him to make it effectively ours as to some purposes of imputation Alas this is to bring God into the business whose wisdom and justice no doubt was efficient to some sad effects of punishment but then to say That it could not be a Sin in us formally and notwithstanding the Divine Justice both imputing and effecting such fearfull purposes as the dreadfull and direfull effects of Adam's and our Original Sin oh Divine Attributes What 's now become of your Vinditation I have heard of deputation to punishment but not of imputation without the crime or fault And if it be so that the sin ran in no sence be properly ours how stands this with the Divine Justice that the punishment should be ours in any sense whatsoever since even we our selves such is our natural and humane Justice kill or destroy not poysonous Serpents noisom vermin savage Beasts ravenous Birds or pestilent weeds but for some natural vitiosity seminally innately hereditarily intrinsecally inherently formally and properly in them 6. To his sixth saying I have spoken before particularly and say now moreover in summe That it is not our punishment that can redound to Adam but the guilt of his sin rather that redounds upon us That in actual external and particular Sins it may be just to afflict the relatives not only to punish the cause but for terrors sake to prevent the example but in this original internal natural and universal Sin it cannot be for terror or prevention to any since all are guilty all are punished That in our relation to Adam we are not only descendants from him in our persons but participants with him in our Natures and so may be formally denominated Sinners as well as he And if there be no more contradiction in it than for every man to say thus if I am formally by him a Sinner then I did really doe his action that may be easily said and not so easie to be contradicted For what hinders but that a man may say nay that he ought to say I did really doe his action though not in the personal and external circumstance yet in the natural and internal substance of doing I did really doe his action in his loyns and as a member of of the whole body of Nature Now if the Member of a mans body may formally be denominated sinfull from the sin of the whole man why then may not every man be so denominated here being an included Member of the whole body of Mankind 7. He says there is nothing in the design or purpose of the Apostle that can or ought to enforce any other thing than what than that we sinned lesse than Adam and therefore sinned not in him and that God imputed this sin less to us than to him I confesse I can see no such purpose in the Apostle and doubtlesse his design throughout the whole contraposition is not to lessen our sin to Adams but to lessen both Adams sinne and the sinne of us all to Christs righteousnesse yea and to lessen the Death which both he and we deserved to the life that Christ had merited for us and so indeed to heighten his Acts and Attributes in all But thus he argues If we have sinned less then we did not sin in him To which it may be thus answered the hand sins less than the mind did it not therefore sin in the body but we see no reason why we should not still say we sinned in him naturally though not personally and as
so as that it is confined to a temporal death If this be not the summary drift let the whole book speak but if this make to the Title now give me leave to speak How invective is this Vindicator of the Divine Attributes against the Sublapsarians and yet this I 'll say for them they doe not they dare not include any under the severe Decree of the Divine Justice till they have considered all as born under the lapse and guilt and defection and infection of Original sin Whereas he himself will not have Original sin so much as properly so called neither will he have any to be so considered undeâ— the lapse as really under the guilt or fault yet notwithstanding he will have the Divine Imputation or Decree to descend even upon all for matter of Temporal infliction Now judge whether of these two Sentences or Executions can more prejudice or impeach the Divine attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness c. viz. That of Gods imputing the whole and utter punishment unto some together with the real imputation of the sin or that of Gods imputing but part of the punishment even unto All and that without any real imputaon of the sin at all Certainly the Divine Justice is made to labour more under this charge for punishing all though but Temporally where he takes none to be faulty than it can under that for punishing but some although eternally where it finds all guilty Thus forcing at his own aim and yet forgetting the mark prefixed he miserably impinges upon the same Rock himself which he would insimulate others for to dash upon Would he verily and indeed have vindicated the glory of the Divine attributes in the question of Original sin he should not have proposed to do it only against the Presbyterian way of understanding it who had they no more disturbed the wholsom Discipline of the Church of England than they have of late directly publiquely and with one consent opposed her in her sound Doctrine she had never been thus widowed to such disorder and distress but might have sat still a Queen of Reformed Churches flourishing in her Peace and Truth Neither will they all yield that their way of understanding it should ever be pointed out for a way a part or singular from the Church of England and other Reformed Churches but he should rather have taken such a kind of Vindication in hand against the Pelagian the Manichaean the Samosatenean the Socinian the Pontifician the Pighian the Flaccian the Arminian the Supralapsarian yea the Judaical the Philosophical the Scholastical the Synergistical and the Anabaptistical way of understanding it all which Hereticks and Sectaries have here would a man goe about to make an exact Catalogue or Computation in more than sixteen times sixteen famous that is infamous questions opinions errors trench'd too palpably and grosly upon the glory of the Divine attributes indeed As be pleased to take here a taste What but their own way of understanding it caused the Jews to run into some error about Orignal sin as that some are born in sin and others not again that some are wholly so born and others but in part else how is it they say Thou wast altogether born in sin Ioh. 9. 34. objecting this scornfully to another in an Exemption of and difference to themselves and again That a Typical a legal or an external Covenant was sufficient to free them from it without the truth of Christ and his Gospel of Grace otherwise why said they within themselves We have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3. 9. and boasted before others We be Abrahams seed we be not born of Fornication Ioh. 8. 33 41. and why doth Christ in convincing them bring them to the Original of sin Ye are of your Father the Devil and the lusts of your Father ye will doe for he was a Murtherer from the beginning c. v. 44. if Original sin was not here intended What but their way of understanding it induced the Heathen Philosophers some to extol Nature as a noble Mother and simply vertuous some to depress her as an obscure step-dame and absolutely vitious Some to lament at the immerited evils of birth some to laugh that it should be thought a man could be born with any vice or crime about him for this was part of that which unto the Greeks seemed foolishness 1 Corinth 1. 23. That one should be saved by another mans merits that one should be just with another mans righteousness that one should suffer and satisfie for another mans offences and that one should be accounted wicked for another mans sins And in very deed the Greeks seeking after wisdom or men curiously Philosophizing and labouring in the Objections and answers of natural reason hath been the main thing that hath invented and maintained all the opinions and errors about Original sin Neither in truth is this natural reasoning of men any other than every mans own way of understanding it But let us goe on to take further notice of what notorious errors or heresies rather that have been not only broached but stifly maintained thereby scilicet that Original sin name and thing is nothing That no sin from Adam passes upon Men either at their conception or at their birth neither so much as imputed to posterity that Adams sin hurt none but himself and that Infants are born in the same state Adam was in before his praevarication That no man is lyable to damnation because of Adams sin That Adams sin passes no other way upon his Posterity but by example or imitation only That Original sin is not remitted to Infants by Baptism because there is no such thing in them so the Pelagians and Coelestians That sins both Original and actual were created by an evil Principle that is an evil God That no sin is caused by Free will but by the evil Principle aforesaid That sin is the very nature and substance of Man That some were so born in sin that Christ could not save them so the Manichees That Original sin is in no sort to be ascribed unto Man but either to God or else to the Devil so the Hermogenians and Valentinians That Original sin is the least of all sins That it is in the Body and not in the Soul or that it is in the inferiour faculties of the Soul only and not in the superiour That Original sin is called sin equivocally abusively figuratively or by a Metonymie either as the Cause of sin or as caused by sin That after Baptism it is no real viciosity but only a penalty That the whole and all of it is not only not imputed and remitted but quite taken away and blotted out by Baptism That Concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That there is no Law against the loss of Original righteousness That notwithstanding the worst of Original sin there will remain in us much both moral civil pious and Spiritual good That it is only a guilt binding over to
this case is a thing that both he and we all are bound to understand and seriously beleeve and not only that but Gods ordination and dispensation to such an end as the manifestation of his honour and glory But why such playing with a thing so sacred As here 's nothing to provoke his spleen to indignation from an horrible decree of absolute necessitating and damning so neither can I see any thing that should move it to laughter or levity the Apostle himself defines what affection it is that should hence be raised We joy in God through our Lord Iesus Christ ver. 11. and well we may since the sufferance or entrance of Sin is here referred to the gracious purpose of Reconciling attoning and saving Is this the way of vindicating the glory of the Divine Attributes to make no more but a light jest at Christs honour in this kind still I say Wisdom is justified of all her Children Luk. 7. 34 39. this he himself spake when men imputed to him a carnal Dispensation with our actual Sins and so much may we say when any man will deprive him of that honour is due unto him from his spiritual dispensation in our Originals Neither let him say to us That the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak Propositions we will say so too and peradventure might say so more justly against him only we let him know right inferences are no imaginations neither are strong deductions weak propositions And if what I have drawn hence be not directly from the Text let him but be pleased to take the illative along with him and then inferr what he can otherwise or to the contrary I confess I would not in any wise have this illation thought redundant for that were to make the Scripture either impure and corrupt or or else idle and superfluous yet should I not have excepted at all if any following my Siriack Transletion had omitted it upon this consideration That it is a hard matter especially in a comparison betwixt Adam and Christ to define a cause or give a reason for Original Sins entrance into the world or descent upon posterity But then this should be observed withall if such a thing be hardly rendred it should not be rashly inquired into because our inquisitiveness in this case tends more to the dishonour than all our Resolution can to the honour of the Divine Attributes As by one Man Whom we may not amiss understand in an unity of name order person nature sex action and Type 1. Of name Adam which appellation comprehends also both the person the sex and the kind 2. Of Order sc. the first man Adam 1 Cor. 15. 45. and so the very Hebraism or Grecism of the cardinal for the ordinal would give it if need were 3. Of Person sc. in the individual in number singularly and precisely taken and so Original Sin properly derived from the prime and not from the proximate Parents or according to their pluralities 4. Of sex the male and not the female who though she was first in the transgression yet some will have him to be solely understood in this propagation But for my part I confesse I can see no cause for such an exception but that they may be understood one Flesh one in the Image one in the praevarication and so one in the Propagation 5. Of Nature as one not only in individuo but in specie one comprehending and representing the whole root and stock and seed and generation and nature and condition of Mankind so Adam is taken for the whole species of Men and the Beast singularly for the whole species of Beasts 6. Of Act namely one in the Dis-obedience or Offence For it was not the simple or meer nature that was the means of such a derivation but the offending and disobedient Nature by which causally and instrumentally this privation and depravatiou this stain and guilt descended upon all yea not only the Offence of one but one offence for it was his first Act that was imputed to us and none of the rest 7. Of Type for Adam is here said to be the Figure or Type of Christ under this notion of one as much as in any thing else he whole Comparison throughout Sin No great matter how many and various soever be the acceptions of Sin in the Scriptures since in this place it is defined by the Apostle to be Sin in the singular and not said plurally Sins as if he would precisely determine it of that one root of Sin distinct from those many following fruits Yea it may be thus rendred the Sin very Emphatically and is understood by almost all from antient to modern for no other but Original Sin simply so accepted as the only Sin which came by one Man singularly and entred into all the world universally whereas actual sins are by many men neither enter they into all the world in general but rather into these and those particulars therein yea it is Sin simply absolutely properly formally For as himself grants this Sin had its beginning by the disobedience of Adam and disobedience is a transgression of a Law and that 's the very formality of Sin and that law was the law of the Image or of perfect Nature Now see Sir I beseech you what is here but in the least shew whereby to collect this sin to be Metonymically so called or what kind of Metonymie would he have it is it a Metonymie of the cause put for the effect So it seems he would have it because it is the effect of one sin Surely that one sin was a proper and real cause how strange is it then That it should beget an effect like to it in no thing but in a Tropical or Tralatitious an equivocal and abusive name if by the cause for the effect be meant Sin but for the Punishment how contrary is that to St. Pauls express words Sin entred into the world and death by Sin so far is he from confounding them that in most express manner he distinguishes between them both in name and signification For should his words be made to signifie thus Death that is the punishment entered by Sin that is the punishment Death the punishment of the punishment I beseech you what sense were this yet we grant though it is not so to be argued from the word in this place Original Sin is both a Sin and a punishment too A sin from the humane injustice perverting a punishment from the Divine Justice deserting Or will he have it a Metonymie of the Effect put for the Cause for so his other words intimate because it is the cause of many sins and those many sins without doubt he means properly so called then seems it so much the more strange and almost prodigious that so many real effects should proceed from a poorly equivocal and transnominated cause Rhetoricians observe that such kind of Metonymies are usual in external causes
the promulgated Law that followed it and was directed chiefly to persons and actions as by the internal law of the Image which went before it with a perpetual obligation of integrity to the whole Nature of such a Law speaks the Apostle in this Epistle When the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 2. 14 15. And this certainly was Law sufficient both to convince men of this Sin and condemn them for it Say the Law of Nature be greatly obscured and the conscience thereupon blinded yet for all that it is usually making this argument upon any pecrancy Something now is which ought not to be and therefore by consequence something is not which ought to be and thus by the exorbitances grows conscious of the defects and this Collection is enough for conviction of the want of natural goodness and that is a divine apprehension of the loss of original righteousness wherefore then speaks he thus Nature alone gives rules but does not bind to penalties if by Nature alone he means fallen corrupted nature now in her defections she gives neither rules nor binds to penalties but only lies bound both to rules and to penalties But to speak of Nature in her integrity and perfection she doth them both directly for she were not perfect without a rule neither were her rule perfect without a penalty upon the violation of it his other words in my judgement as they are little to the Apostles meaning so they are lesse to common Truth Death he says dâ—d presently descend upon all Mankind even before a Law was given them with an appendant penalty viz. with the express intermination of death was not that Law exprest enough In that day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2. 17 I need not ask him whether this Law did concern the man alone for he confesses it did presently descend upon all Mankind But what death without a Law and a Law without a penalty He that contended so before to vindicate Gods attributes in regard of a Sentence without Execution how will he extricate himself from impinging thereupon in talking thus of an Execution without a Sentence certainly the Divine Attributes are much more out of question in pronouncing utterly upon all and yet sparing some than in executing upon all although but in the least degree having not yet denounced against any As for his next words let him look well to what he saies it is impossible they should passe even moderate men without a censure or some scanning at the least with him that is with Adam God being angry was he provoked against the person only and not against the whole Nature was pleased to curse was not that pleasure in a manner absolute that had no more but an improper respect to curse all for the Sin of one To curse him also in his posterity nay was it not rather to curse his posterity in him for he but little felt his curse in them but they were long to feel their curse in him and leave them also in their meer natural condition was this natural condition any kind of state before the Fall then could it not be cursed or miserable was it that after the Fall then was it not meer or pure natural but altogether depraved and corrupted But God was pleased to leave them So then Gods great and easily justifiable action was the good pleasure of his desertion wisely justly to leave them destitute of the forfeited Image and to let them alone to themselves in that corrupt condition to which they betrayed But he says more To which yet they disposed themselves To what to their meer natural condition to which God curst them in which he left them But how disposed themselves hereunto I hope he will not say 't was any personal disposition of ours for that goes far beyond all that hath been said of our natural inclination but if he intend it only of our actual and following sins they did not dispose us to our fall'n estate and corrupt natural condition but only confirm us in it what can be spoken more against Order than that following actions should dispose to a foregoing condition we use to say the first person corrupted our Nature but in all else it is the nature that corrupts the persons personal sins are no whit disposing to the Nature but aggravating to the person only Original Sin though it doe not act alike in all yet it is but one and alike in all be the personal actions more or less He concludes yet for the anger which God had against Mankind he left that Death which he threatned to Adam expresly by implication to fall upon his posterity Now I demand but this Was the anger of God with Adam and against Mankind the same well then it had the same provocation Nay but he will have this last to be upon our own evil Commissions and deserts Then I must demand again why was that Death the same is it righteous that should be the same penalty and not the same provocation But he left it to fall by Implication that 's an implicated word and may imply Error as well as truth If he implies our Original defection that 's a truth but if our actual Commissions only that 's the Error But I will take by implication as he here contradistinguishes it to Expressively threatned and so it draws near nay comes home to the truth of my Text That before Moses Law sin was in the world even Original Sin and the Sin of the first Parent and that by a Law of its own which Law though it was Expressively threatned but to Adam only yet by implication of Sin and corruption in the whole nature the punishment through that implying Law justly fell upon the whole posterity But Sin is not imputed where there is no Law In these words St. Pauls intention is not so much to prove the being of Sin from the being of a Law but rather the being of a Law from the being of a Sin And therefore he thus argues Sin was in the world before the promulgation of Moses Law but that could not be unless there was a Law to convince it so to be Ergo A law there was And again Sin is not imputed when there is no Law but it was imputed Ergo there was a Law And this is the more certain and infallible way of arguing because the being of a Law does not necessarily and always argue the being of a Sin but the being of a Sin does necessarily and always argue the being of a Law For a Law may be a Law though no sin be yet committed but a Sin is no Sin till the Law be imposed now the Law was always
as being the eternal Law and eternally existing in the divine mind yea and more or less imprinted in the minds and consciences of Men from the beginning The Law therefore being before the Sin there was no time of the world after Sin wherein Sin was not imputed But much adoe is here made by the means of distinguishing or diversifying Questions viz. whether this imputing of Sin be by God or by men whether it be of Original Sin or of actual whether it be by the eternal and natural or by the written and published Law whether it be of the fault and corruption or of the guilt and punishment whether it be to penalty temporal or eternal whether this imputation be of our own sins or anothers Whether this imputation be distinguished or divided from inherence Thus we trouble our selves and one another and the Truth betwixt us with many a Fallacy of Division whereas much error were to be avoided by taking both together in a conjoyned sense and the Truth were easily determined in all those questions or in most part of any of the questions by accepting both parts indifferently even the one as well as the other As to speak only to this Authors words or divided Propositions The Apostle he saith speaketh here of Sin imputed therefore not of Sin inherent Not so by his leave for the Apostle speaks not here of any distinction at all betwixt imputed and inherent sin but of Sin indefinitely and universally and that imputed only by a Law now the Law properly imputes Sin be it never so properly inherent as in actual sins though they be inherent yet the Law properly does but impute them So in Original Sin the Law does impute it yet so as it is inherent So that in one or other the Sin is nevertheless inherent for being imputed nor imputed for being inherent And if imputed to such purposes as he here speaks of viz. to Temporal Death then it is neither a Sin properly nor yet imputable so eternal so far as is or can be implyed by the Apostles words Yes yes the contrary to all his in every purpose is not only implyed but apparent from the Apostles words For the Apostle speaks of Death indefinitely without any limitation to these or those purposes and that 's an universal implying all kinds of Death Besides Death here by Adam must so be taken as proportionably extending to the-life by Christ otherwise wrong is done to the whole comparison and consequently to all our Saviours Attributes Now the life we are here said to gain by the Excellency of Christ is not only a corporal life opposite to a temporal death but a justification of life opposite to a spiritual Death and a reigning in life opposite to an eternal Death Whensoever another mans sin is imputed to his relative therefore becaeuse it is anothers and imputed it can goe no further but to effect certain evils to afflict the relative but to punish the cause not formally to denominate the descendant or relative to be a Sinner So he saith again to which thus much is to be said That what perhaps may be congruously spoken betwixt one particular man and another is very inconsutile to be said betwixt Adam and all Mankind Betwixt Man and Man we know the Descendants of Traitors and Vassals in relation to their progenitors offences are punish'd though they were not formally the Offenders And therefore such words may say something in respect of proximate Parents and of relatives yet living upon whom their condition may reflect and to whom their example may be usefull but in relation betwixt the prime Parent and us his descendants they say nothing at all For he was not punished for our Sins but we for his neither was he punished in our punishment but we in his neither was his simply another mans sin but ours also neither was it imputed only but inherent also neither were we Relatives only but accessories only neither were we Descendants only but participants all this is to be understood of the Common nature union and representation and therefore here was enough to denominate us formally to be Sinners But I cannot but wonder at such a restrictive largness in the saying Another mans sin imputed therefore because it is anothers and imputed For the Sin or the crime to be imputed therefore because it is imputed and for the evil or punishment to be inflicted for another mans sin therefore because it is anothers this is horrid to think of even in Men what is it then to urge in such a case as this where it cannot but reflect even upon God himself But about this imputation he yet urges Nor Reason nor Sciptures nor Religion does enforce and no Divine attribute does permit that we should say that God did so impute Adams sin to his posterity that he did really esteem them to be guilty of Adams sin equally culpable equally hatefull though this latter part be said but by few yet this Scripture in hand inforces us to say That God did really esteem them to be guilty of Adams Sin in whom all have sinned that is really sinned and by whose disobedience they were made Sinners sc. really so made if he did so only impute as not really and verily esteem guilty what kind of imputation I pray was that imaginative opinionative suspitious pretensive presumptive conjectural phantastical equivocal abusive or as are his own words figurative Metonymical collateral indirect this we are sure no Reason no Scripture no Religion no Divine Attribute will permit to say so But because he wil have us say equally culpable equally hatefull c. we will say it in the most convenient sense we may be equally culpable in our common nature equally hatefull in our Natural Sin the same Malice of our Nature the same action of our Nature as much guilty as he according to that universal nature wherein he comprised and represented us all and so much he is not unknowing all Religions primitive and latter Protestant and Papists have said not without reason and Scripture nor is any Attribute of God to be objected there against But to suppose that we have sinned take us truly as in our Nature union mass root stock c. less than he or That God imputed this Sin lesse to us than to him this say we is but supposition and that is far from probation and therefore we would fain learn that Analogie of Faith those Words of Scripture that proportion and Notice of the Divine Attributes that would inforce us to suppose so much But I return to the Apostles supposition who here supposes that there was no time of the world since the First mans fall wherein there was not a Law and sin and the imputation How is it then that he says of Mankind They did do actions unnatural and vile enough but yet these sins were not yet so imputed were they indeed unnatural and vile and yet not so imputed upon what ground then does
to follow the punishment and not rather the punishment to follow the sin But say his rule stood upon some right foot yet how follows his argument from it The Sin was imputed in proportion to the punishment but the punishment was proper and real not figurative and equivocal and therefore so must the Sin be too else who can tell what 's become of all this proportion Conseq. God was not finally angry with us nor had so much as any designs of eternal displeasure upon that account Inconseq The way to vindicate Gods Attributes is not to pry into them too curiously nor to determine upon them too peremptorily nor to aggravate them too severely nor to extenuate them too indulgently but to believe them and justifie them and magnifie them so as they are revealed God indeed was not finally angry with us his Elect neither upon our original nor upon our actual account And why because his wrath was so appeased by Christ satisfaction But was he not therefore so at the Sin simply and absolutely considered if he had no design of eternal displeasure upon that account then he sent Christ to die in vain For Christ died to prevent not the temporal but the eternal death Nor was that to redeem us from the mortality and condition of our Nature for he suffered it himself and left us to follow him in a conformity but from the depravation and damnation of it Conseq. This anger went no further than the evils of this life and therefore the imputation was not of a proper guilt for that might justly have past beyond our grave if the same had past beyond a Metonymie or a juridical external imputation Inconseq O rare consequent the punishment was but temporally inflicted and therefore the Sin was not properly imputed As if temporal punishments whether from God or men were the arguments of improper Sins only But O wonderfull vertue of a bare Trope or figurative locution to qualifie such a pravity extenuate such a provocation divert such a desert yea to regulate such a Justice or to restrain and limit such a power If his Metonymical imputation be the same with Iuridical and external then me thinks this proportion should be observed in the proceeding That as the Sin is imputed but only as it were in some shadow or resemblance of words so should the punishment be inflicted and not in any deed or substance For he that is found guilty but only in an imaginary Idea or picture ought not to be executed but only in conceit or as it were in effigie But I am forbidden to smile since it is a matter of fighing in regard the Divine Attributes are so stricken at For what provocation can there be for Gods universal and continual anger for such it is against the Fall and original sin without an mputation of a proper and participating guilt where the sin is properly imputed there he grants the punishment may justly goe beyond our Graves that is even to Hell But if there be no such imputation no such propriety no such participation I can see no cause why those evils should passe so far as this present life Eternal death is little enough if sin be properly and particularly imputed but if it be not so I cannot see but that even a temporal death to all mankind must be too much Conseq. That as no man ever imposed penance for it for original Sin so God himself in nature did never for it afflict or affright the Conscience Inconseq By penance surely he understands not private Repentance but publick Discipline or that of the Churches imposing say it were so the Churches power is to impose the penance for publike notorious scandalous and exemplary Crimes and offences it cannot take cognisance as no external Law or administration can of an inward secret unsearchable though worthily suspected Sin such as the Original is Besides whose should be the authority in such a cause or case where all are concluded and confest guilty alike As for the other part I ask of him did not God himself afflict and affright Adams Conscience for it when he was forced to say I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self Gen. 3. 10. And we all feel and must confesse this afflicting this affrighting was not of his person only but in his and our Nature also as woefull experience convinces us all to this very day Conseq. And why the conscience shall be for ever at so much peace for this sin that a man shall never give one groan for his share of guilt in Adams sin unlesse some or other scares him with an impertinent proposition Inconseq What the conscience shall be for ever is hard for him to say And for what it hath been hitherto he knows a Conscience is not always to be argued for pure and free because it is quiet and still But what says he to David did not he groan for it in that Poenitential of his Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin hath my Mother conceived me Psalm 51. 5. And to St. Paul is this no groaning Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7. 24. Nay shall we not beleeve what he but lately said of himself For my part I cannot but confesse that to be which I feel and groan under and by which all the world is miserable Let him look to his Conscience and see how his words agree first and last I hope he will not now say it was some impertinent proposition that scared him thereunto Conseq. Why the Conscience should not naturally be afflicted for it nor so much as naturally know it I confesse I cannot yet make any reasonable conjecture save this only that it is not properly a Sin but only Metonymically and improperly Inconseq Such a conjecture is not reasonable for if to deny a Sin to be such were sufficient because the Conscience naturally smiles not for it nor yet convinces of it so many actual sins might easily come to be denied A strange conjecture for a figurative appellation to save a Conscience I know the Conscience can Syllogize but I never knew that she could ever so Rhetoricate with her self such a conjecture is so far from being worth the sole preferring that it 's not worth the naming where better reasons are brought forth As namely That Original sin her self has blinded and bedulled the Conscience as touching the true and full apprehension of her self and of Original sin That the law and light of nature is exceedingly obscured to all Consciences since the Fall That most mens Consciences are insensible even of their actual and sensual sins how much more then of the Original and invisible That men have pulled and seared both their own and others Consciences as touching the true sense of Original Sin by dayly hatching and broaching such heresies and errors about it No marvel then that men are
here so insensible we see it may easily come to passe through natural ignorance and ill habits without this diminishing glass of a Metonymical spectacle Conseq. there are some whole Churches which think themselves so little concerned in the matter of Original Sin that they have not a word of it in all their Theologue Inconseq That they have not a word of it their Theologue is defective to them that they think themselves not concerned in it they are defective to their Theologie I could tell him of some Churches that in their Theologie make no mention of the Decalogue do they therefore think themselves but little concerned in it again some Churches think themselves so much concerned in Original Sin that they beleeve Souls as well as Bodies to be propagated from Adam I spake this of the Ethiopians and the Russians no Church but is bound to have such a body of Divinity as may comprehend the whole principles of Faith and Religion yea and to unfold them and confess them so far as they are revealed in the word of God but what is it to object some obscure and confused Churches to the Catholique universal to the most orderly and eminent Churches of the World Conseq. The height of this imagination hath wrought so high in the Church of Rome that when they would doe great honour to the Virgin Mary they were pleased to allow unto her an immaculate conception without any Original Sin Inconseq So far as the Church of Rome seemed to joyn with the Primitive Churches in the point of Original Sin so far also have the Reformed Churches joyned with them as namely That Original Sin is That it is properly and inherently a Sin That it descendeth by natural propagation not by imitation That it hath in both a stain and guilt That it subjected to misery and death in all senses and significations That we are redeemed therefrom by the merits of Christ These are heights indeed but not heights of imagination but sound Doctrine And these she pretended to hold forth against all those who affirmed That Adam lost Original righteousnesse only for himself and not for us his posterity and that by Adams disobedience sin descended not upon Mankind but only a bodily death or punishment Indeed here she hath also some heights of imagination as That Original sin is not only remitted by Baptism but utterly abolished and quite taken away That the concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That Original Sin is only in the inferiour and not in the superiour faculties That the blessed Virgin was conceived and born free from Original Sin yea and many more heights of imagination they have much disputed on among their Scholasticks so that they owe their errors not to the simple profession of Original Sinne but to their subtle disputation about it As for their opinion of the blessed Virgins immaculate conception it arose from no other height but that oâ— their own superstition which is too notorious in all they can feign or imaginâ— for her say of her or doe to her But I pray God this low imagination oâ— slender and slight conceit of a Metonymical juridical external collateral nay equivocal abusive phantastical imputation serve not to be get a conceit or presumption of an immaculate conception in us all I have read of one that would needs deny the immortality of the Soul with intent to disprove the Popish purgatory but there are other ways to refute this Error of the immaculate conception than by abating the truth or utmost truth of Original Sin One thing more he saith I am to observe before I leave considering the word of the Apostle This one thing is not so much a consequent of what he would say for himself as an argument against all such as would argue against him The ground betwixt both is laid in these last words of the Apostle As by one mans disobedience many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Some saith he from hence suppose they argue strongly to the overthrow of all that I have said Thus As by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners This we acknowledge not only to be our Argument but our way of Augmentation and if this standing good be sufficient to overthrow all that he hath said then it is easie to be observed to what purpose he hath spoken all this while but to this he hath spoken in his Addresses and to them we can say nothing till we see them But besides saith he I have something very material to reply to the form of the Argument which is a very trick and fallacy Strong reason may be spoken very often without a formal Syllogisme and where the matter cannot be denied to be true and good 't is but a kind of sophistical fallacy to stand too pedantically upon the form But to argue from hence as by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners is saith he to invert the purpose of the Apostle The reciprocation or conversion of propositions is no inversion of their purpose where they may truly praedicate either way Neither is the inverting of words in their order always a perverting of them in their intent But the Apostle argues from the lesse to the greater Indeed the Apostle in his comparison proceeds after such a manner as from Adam to Christ from Sin to Grace from Death to Life now Comparates Ianus-like look {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} forwards and backwards and may argue mutually from one to another Nay they must doe it else could they not be Comparates now though the Apostle argue from the lesse to the greater by way of Amplification yet he forbids not to argue from the greater to the lesse for matter of reallity and that is all our Argument But we saith he make it conclude affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power Will he allow us to doe it negatively why that will serve our turn sufficiently Thus As Christ's righteousnesse was not imputed only so neither was Adams sin or thus As our righteousness by Christ was not a Metonymical righteousnesse so our sin by Adam was not a Metonymical Sin But by his leave we may take liberty to argue affirmatively as before yet offend against no Logical Law or Canon of Comparates nay and the consequence shall be of great force even affirmatively as Thus As Christ did and suffered his Fathers will so ought we to doe and suffer the same As God charged his Angels with Folly how much more may he us mortal men and from the Apostle in this place As the Life was a real life so the Death was a real Death As the Grace was real Grace so the Sin was real Sin But he now assumes the trick or fallacy himself taxing us for concluding affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power as what a