are not constituted ordained or appointed to sinne as sinne is properly taken but that men are constituted ordained or appointed to dye appeares by many Testimonies of Scripture And generally where wee read the phrase of bearing sinne and iniquity there sinne must not bee taken for the act of sinne but for the effect of it which is punishment or affliction because properly not the act of sinne but the punishment of it is the thing that is to bee borne And universally wheresoever sinne is joyned with forgivenesse or with any other word to that sense there sinne is put for punishment because the thing to bee pardoned or forgiven is not properly the act of sinne but the punishment or affliction which is the effect or consequent of sinne Againe the Calamitous is not a Sinner actively by committing any act of sinne against Law or Equity as were the two former Offenders who were properly sinners But hee is a Sinner passively by suffering that shame paine or losse which is commonly inflicted as a punishment on such as are sinners properly Lastly hee is not a sinner really in whom sinne is inherent for then it must needes follow that hee is properly and actively a Sinner But hee is a Sinner putatively because hee is accounted or reputed a sinner and having done no act of a sinner is put into the state and condition of a sinner to bee handled after the image and likenesse of a transgressour by suffering Afflictions like to those Afflictions which are denounced and executed as Judgements and Punishments upon transgressors as the Beasts which the Law declared uncleane were not in themselves uncleane really and inherently but imaginarily and putatively Thus the Jurall sinner is but a quasi-sinner because hee is so improperly i. e. effectually passively and putatively And of these Jurall sinners or Calamitous persons there are foure sorts 1. The Opressed who unjustly against Law and Justice yet under colour of Law and Justice are calumniated criminated condemned and executed as sinners and transgressours Thus after Davids death in case Adonijah had prevailed Bathsheba and Solomon should have beene sinners 1. King 1.21 Otherwise it shall come to passe when my Lord the King shall sleepe with his Fathers that I and my sonne Solomon shall bee counted Offenders Where the Hebrew hath it shall bee sinners as the Margin advertiseth But Naboth de facto was made a sinner for hee really was not a blasphemer Yet by the Letters of Jezabel hee was predestinated ordained and appointed to bee a blasphemer 1. King 21.9 And shee wrot in the Letters saying Proclaime a Fast and set Naboth on high among the People and set two men sonnes of Belial before him to beare witnesse against him saying Thou didst blaspheame God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that hee may dye And in dangerous times when the wicked watch for iniquity a word may make a man a sinner Esay 29.21 All that watch for iniquity are cut off that make a man an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth And with all Religious reverence bee it written such a sinner was Jesus Christ who although hee were true God and true man the truest and justest man that ever lived one who never did any sinne nor spake any guile Yet hee was made a sinner and suffered as a transgressour Esay 53.12 Hee poured out his soule unto death and was numbred with the transgressours i. e. Hee who really was no transgressour was made a quasi-transgressour and suffered among transgressours And Rom. 8.3 For what the Law could not doe in that it was weake through the flesh God sending his owne Sonne in the likenesse of sinfull flesh i. e. His sonne who really was not sinfull was made quasi-sinfull and suffered after the likenesse and maner of one really sinfull And 2. Cor. 5.21 For hee hath made him to bee sinne for us who knew no sinne i. e. Hee who really was no sinner him God made a quasi-sinner to suffer for us on the Crosse as a reall sinner for sinne in the abstract is heere put for sinner in the concret And Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us i. e. Hee who really was not cursed was made quasi-cursed in hanging on the Crosse as one really cursed 2. The blemished who justly according to the law of Nations are disabled and debarred from the common rights and priviledges of man to abide in that state and condition which is usually made a punishment for offenders In this ranke is a Bastard who being no reall transgressour against the Law is by an act of the Law made a quasi-transgressour whereby hee is debarred from the right of his birth forfeyting that inheritance or portion which by common course belongs to children as their birth-right For the poore Bastard is predestinated prejudicated decreed and doomed for a sinner before he is borne before hee hath done any good or evill before hee hath stirred in his mothers wombe and before his mother hath conceived him And whensoever he is to be conceived hee shall bee conceived a sinner because his conception being unlawfull and sinfull doth ipso facto render his parents actuall transgressours or sinners legally and himselfe a quasi transgressour or sinner jurally to lose his birth-right when he is borne And by the Law of God the Bastard lost not only his right of Birth but his right of Assembly to him and his heires for ever for hee and they successively stood as persons excommunicate and debarred from entrance into the Congregation of the Lord Deut. 23.2 A Bastard shall not enter into the Congregation of the Lord even to his tenth generation shall he not enter i. e. he and his posterity shall never enter for the tenth generation passeth for a perpetuity as the next verse interprets it Such a Sinner is an Alien forreiner or stranger inhabiting a Countrey wherein hee is disabled and debarred from the rights and priviledges of inheritances assemblies societies and other common benefits of the Lawes municipall which the natives of the Land enjoy and consequently he lives in a state and condition which is usually inflicted on sinners as a punishment for sin So the Romans Greeks and other Nations sojourning in Judea were by the Jewes accounted and called sinners because they were aliens and strangers who had no right to the lands and inheritances of that Countrey not to the assemblies congregations and ceremonies of Moses which by the Law were appropriated and entayled to the Nation of the Jewes and to such Proselites as were endenized or made free of their Nation For in this jurall sense the word Sinner is frequently taken in the Evangelists especially where it stands subjoyned with Publicans See Mat. 9.10 and Mat. 11.19 and Marc. 2.15 16. and Luke 5.30 and Luke 15.1 And lastly such a Sinner is a Villain i. e. a bond-slave borne who is no actuall transgressour
against any Law yet by the Law of Nations is made a quasi-transgressour being wholly depersonated and degraded from the common condition of an humane person and depressed into the state as it were of a beast to live as an odious and detestable creature subject to all maner of injuries and excluded from all kind of benefit having no humane right at all No right of inheritance to enjoy any estate no right of authority to beare any office no right of suffrage to make any election no right of assembly to consult of businesse no right of testimony to beare witnesse nor right of Testament to make a Will And by the Law of God the Gibeonites were cursed into an hereditary bondage to be slaves and drudges for ever about the Temple of the Lord Jos 9.23 Now therefore ye are cursed and there shall none of you bee freed from being bondmen and hewers of wood and dramers of water for the house of my God 3. The Distressed who justly according to the secret will of God are afflicted with some permanent misery Of these our Saviour gives us two or three severall short lists one Mat. 11.5 as the Blind the Lame the Leapers the Dease and the Dead Another Luke 4.18 as the Poore the broken-hearted the captive the blinde and the bruised A third Mat. 25.35 as the Hungry the thirsty the stranger the naked the sick and the prisoner All which and the like are by the Lawyers tearmed Personae miserabiles i. e. miserable persons because being in misery they are the proper objects of mercy and pity and because they are the proper subjects of for a Testament ad pias causas i. e. a Will made for charitable and godly uses for the reliefe of miserable and pitious creatures to whom mercy and pity doth properly belong Yet in the eye and judgement of the world these kind of persons are generally censured for trangressours and are indeed quasi-transgressours because they are afflicted with such miseries as are many times made the Judgement of God upon transgressors In this ranke Job was a sinner for hee was miserably afflicted in his goods in his children and in his body as if he had beene a foule transgressour yet really hee was not a transgressour for Job 1.8 the Lord gave him this testimony that There was 〈◊〉 like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feared God and eschewed evill It was therefore the errour of Jobs friends to argue his transgression from his affliction because although transgression be a cause of affliction yet is neyther the perpetuall nor totall nor sole cause therof but there are other good causes besides transgression why God layes affliction upon this or that person though from men those causes be concealed For they flow from the secret will of God and sometimes from his good will Thus was Lazarus a sinner for he was sorely distressed and afflicted being a beggar layd at the rich mans gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crammes that fell from the rich mans table moreover the dogs came and licked his sores Luke 16.20 Yet it seemes he was not a transgressour for when he dyed hee was carryed by the Angels into Abrahams bosome And thus was the blinde man a sinner John 9.1 for he was afflicted and distressed being blinde from his birth and withall so poore that hee sate and begged Yet neither he nor his Parents were transgressors for in that point Christ expresly cleeres them all but hee was made a quasi-transgressor or a quasi-sinner that the workes of God should be made manifest in him 4. The Tainted who justly according to the declared Will of God are made Heires to their Fathers misery Who derive from their Father not onely that nature wherein hee was created but also that distresse and misery wherewith hee was afflicted who are necessitated or at least not exempted from that state and condition of misery which by reason of some sinne their Father incurred But either by the curse of God or by the course of nature those forfeits damages and losses which fell upon the Father are made hereditary to descend upon the Children This kinde of Calamity by Attainder is by the Sages of the Common Law called Corruption of blood when a mans Crime is so corrupt and foule that the Attainder or Judgement against it doth corrupt and spoyle not onely the offenders person but his blood i. e. his children and kindred for upon them that Attainder hath three notable effects 1. It debars them from being Heires to his estate for hee forfeits all his Lands and Goods and that forfeit is entailed on his Children 2. It depriveth them from partaking of any dignity which hee had as if hee before hee were noble hee and all his children are thereby made ignoble and base 3. It staineth them so deepely that regularly it cannot bee salved or removed by the ordinary course of grace or mercy but requires some extraordinary remedy as heere in England by authority of Parliament For this Corruption of blood must bee understood in a sense onely Jurall or Judiciall and not in a physicall naturall or carnall sense because the humour of blood which runneth in the veines of an offender and of his children is physically and naturally as incorrupt and as sound after the Attainder as before for upon the humors and spirits the Attainder of it selfe workes no alteration unlesse accidentally in this or that person at the hearing of the Sentence or apprehension of Death In this ranke the children of Ninevy should have beene sinners whereof sixe score thousand that could not discerne betweene their right hand and their left should have beene destroyed in the destruction of the City had not their Parents repented at the preaching of Jonah But the Children of Achan were de facto made such sinners Jos 7.24 For by reason of Achans Sacriledge His Sonnes and his Daughters and his Oxen and his Asses and his Sheepe and his Tent and all that hee had were stoned with stones and afterward burnt with fire So heere the Children of the Gibeonites Jos 9.27 Who for the deceit of their Parents were made hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Congregation and for the Alter of the Lord even unto this day So were the seven sonnes of Saul 2. Sam. 21.9 Who for their Fathers cruelty against the Gibeonites where at the suite of the Gibeonites hanged in the hill before the Lord. And so were also the sonnes of Gehazi if hee had any 2. King 5.27 Who for their Fathers impudency in bribing and lying were made the Heires of his Leprosie for the leprosie of Naaman shall cleave unto Gehazi and unto his seed for ever And in this ranke are all the sonnes of Adam who for his disobedience are made the Heires of his mortality for by his sinne death entred upon him and by him upon all his children for they in him were all tainted Rom.
during or from my time in my mothers wombe for the wombe is not here the tearme of Recesse from whence the Apostle is said to be separate as if the separation were to be understood of his severing from the wombe by the way of his delivery or birth from thence for then it must have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but his abode in the wombe was the tearme of Time when or during which hee was separated unto the Ministery or rather decreed or designed to be separated thereto But the tearme of Recesse from whence hee was decreed to bee separate was partly his contemporaries whom hee exceeded in the acts of Persecution and partly the rest of the Apostles whom hee exceeded in suffering Persecution And the terme of Accesse whereunto he was separate was his Ministery or Apostleship yet not that simply considered but his separate and singular Apostleship whereby after an extraordinary maner he was singled out from the rest of the Apostles to exercise his Ministery apart from theirs that hee might preach Christ among the heathen or Gentiles as he specifies in the next verse following for unto those words there the words heere of his separating and calling must be referred for their coherence as being the employment and service whereunto hee was separated and called For unto this separate and singular Apostleship to preach Christ among the Gentils Paul was elected as God tells Ananias whom he sent to heale Paul of his blindnesse in Damascus Acts 9.15 and as Ananias reports it unto Paul when he healed him Acts 22.13.14 And unto this he was instituted at Jerusalem when hee was in a trance praying in the Temple where God sayd unto him Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem for I will send thee farre hence unto the Gentiles Act. 22.17.18.21 And unto this he was ordayned at Antioch when unto the Prophets and Teachers there as they ministred to the Lord and fasted the holy Ghost sayd Separate mee Barnabas and Saul for the worke whereunto I have called them Act. 13.2 For heer and now at this time and place that Separation was actually ordayned or destinated which from his mothers wombe was pre-ordayned or predestinated Hence Paul stiles himselfe the separate Apostle unto the Gospel Rom. 1.1 And hence he professeth with a deepe asseveration that hee was ordayned and appointed a Preacher and an Apostle and a Teacher of the Gentiles See 1. Tim. 2.7 and 2. Tim. 1.11 where by the words ordayned and appointed he seems to explicate the word separated q.d. Before the time that ever I had done any humane act eyther of good or evill in the world yea before the time that I was borne into the world while yet I lay wrapped in my mothers wombe God by his good pleasure and singular favour unto me decreed and designed to separate appoint or ordaine me to a separate and singular Apostleship apart from the rest of the Apostles especially from Peter James and John whose Province it was to preach Christ among the Jewes that mine from theirs should be far remote to preach him among the Gentiles wherto afterward he actually called instituted and ordained me for the actuall execution of that whereto from my Mothers wombe hee had separated and designed mee This hee saith to certifie and make knowne unto the Galatians that his Apostleshippe was no way humane that hee had neither instruction nor authority thereto from those that were the chiefe Apostles as the false Teachers among the Galatians had falsely suggested But the whole frame of his Apostleshippe was wholly divine from the good pleasure of God even from his mothers wombe And in his expression heereof hee seemes to allude to the words of Esay who saith of himselfe The Lord hath called mee from the wombe from the bowells of my Mother hath hee made mention of my name Esay 49.1 Or to the words of Jeremy to whom God saith Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the wombe I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a Prophet unto the Nations Jer. 1.5 In the words to Jeremy to sanctifie is the same that to separate is with Paul for to sanctifie there is not to make Jeremy holy and righteous morally but politically to designe and ordain him to a publick Office for there Jeremy is ordained a Prophet unto the Nations and heere Paul is separated a Preacher unto the Gentiles A saying not much unlike to this of himselfe and to those of the Prophets the Apostle hath of Jacob and Esau concerning whom God made a singular appoyntment from their Mothers wombe while the Children were not yet borne neither had done any good or evill Rom. 9.11 But from Gods singular acts upon any of these single persons from their Mothers wombe to collect an universall appoyntment upon all single persons from all eternity is not consequent by any rule of sound reason And called mee by his grace Called mee viz. to my Apostleship by signifying his will to institute mee an Apostle to the Gentiles If wee referre this Calling to the time of his Mothers wombe and make it an adjunct and concurrent with his separation as if from his Mothers wombe God had both separated and called him then the word called cannot signifie the act of his calling that then hee was actually called but onely the Decree of his calling that then God designed him to bee called afterward as it seemes the word is taken Rom. 9.11 But there is no cause to the contrary but that the word called may heere signifie the effect of that separation which God made of him in his Mothers wombe and the time of it fitly referred to those times wherein hee was actually and really called by the intimation unto him of Gods will and pleasure who had elected instituted and ordained him to execute the office of an Apostle to the Gentiles which intimation was made and confirmed unto him at severall times and places as at Damascus by Ananias at Jerusalem by God himselfe in a vision and at Antioch by the Presbytery as was formerly noted And the ground of his Calling to bee an Apostle of Christ was no qualification in himselfe whereby hee was prepared or fitted to preach Christ for hee was wholly ignorant of Christ who now upon his calling was to bee revealed unto him as it appeares by the words next following Nor no act of justice in God whereby God was obliged to recompence any former act done by Paul who had done many acts to the contrary that made him unworthy to bee called an Apostle for although touching the righteousnesse which is in the Law hee was blamelesse Phil. 3.6 Yet touching the Gospel hee was not blamelesse but criminates himselfe for a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious 1. Tim. 1.13 Nor no act of equity in God whereby God stood engaged to his owne decree in separating and designing him to the Apostleship from his Mothers wombe for that decree
should bee so unmanerly unthankefull and unkinde as to deny a little provision to David and his followers who unto him had been so good as to be a defence to him and his goods Come we down somewhat lower to an example or two of this improbity from the New Testament Such an improbous Sinner was the wicked servant Mat. 18.28 who when his Lord had forgiven him a debt of ten thousand talents would neither forgive nor forbeare his fellow-servant who owed him onely an hundred pence but arrested and imprisoned him for it This act was a sinne for his Lord thereupon was so wrath that revoking his former pardon of the debt hee delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him Yet this was no legall sinne against any Law because the act in it selfe was very lawfull for the Law allowes every Creditor to demand and sue for his debt but it was a morall sinne against morality equity and Charity for him to whom his Lord had forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents to exact from his fellow-servant a matter of an hundred pence Such a Sinner was Dives Luke 16.19 who was cloathed in purple and fared sumptuously every day letting Lazarus lye at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crummes that fell from the table This prodigality upon himselfe and parcimony toward the poore was a sinne not legall but morall against the rules of equity Charity and mercy Such Sinners were the Priest and the Levite Luke 10.31 who seeing a man lye in the way stripped wounded and halfe dead passed by on the other side This passage of theirs was no legall sinne against any Law but a morall sinne against the rules of equity humanity courtesie charity and mercy Lastly such sinners will the damned be found at the last day when the finall Inditement shall runne against them in this form Mat. 25.42 I was an hungred and ye gave me no meate I was thirsty and ye gave me no drinke I was a stranger and ye tooke me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited mee not Certainely these negligences are sinnes for the parties are cursed and punished with this finall Judgement to eternall damnation Depart from mee ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Divel and his angels Yet they are not sinnes legally against the Law of Moses but morally against the rules of equity charity and mercy 3. The word Sinner signifies jurally quoad jura for one who is Calamitous who either hath no Right at all or not that right which he should have or not that which he might have had but is either deprived or debarred from some right priviledge or capacity which by Law or favour is alowed unto others and is predestinated prejudicated decreed and doomed to be and abide in the state and condition of an offendour and thereby to suffer that misery of losse paine and shame which is commonly inflicted as a punishment upon offenders Yet unto the Calamitous the misery which he suffers is not a punishment but onely an affliction because no man is to be punished for having no right or for quitting his right much lesse for losing it if the losse be none of his fault but against his will Now according to the common rule and practice of denominations he that hath no right or not his due right but misseth and faileth of his right may be called unrighteous and must bee so called till wee can finde or make some other appellative that will fit him better and a person in this sense unrighteous is accordingly in Scripture called a Sinner And the fact which doth constitute or make a man thus a Jurall Sinner to bee calamitous woefull and wretched is no act of his owne but either the act of some Adversary who unjustly and without cause chargeth upon that sinne whereof hee is not guilty or the act of some Law or of some Curse which burdeneth him for that sinne whereof some other person is guilty whereby the calamitous who is innocent and guiltlesse is forced to suffer affliction or misery as if in himselfe hee were a Delinquent and guilty Yet the Calamitous as hee stands distinguished from the transgressor and the improbous should in strictnesse of speech be called rather a quasi-sinner then a Sinner because hee is not a Sinner properly but quasily i. e. hee hath manifest differences to cleare him from the proper nature of a Sinner and yet hath resemblances enough to draw upon him the name of a Sinner For properly and usually the word sinne doth signifie tha◠evill act which is an offence either against Law or Equity and so the Transgressor and the improbous are both offendors and both properly sinners But many times that word is taken improperly and figuratively by a Metonymy frequent in Scripture and in ordinary discourse and so it signifies not the evill act of sinne but that evill effect or consequent which followes the act of sinne and is commonly made the punishment of sinne as shame paine losse or any other Affliction Calamity Misery or Trouble especially Death which is mans finall suffering and his last enemy As Gen. 4.7 If thou dost well shalt thou not bee accepted and if thou dost not well i. e. If thou dost any act of sinne sinne lyeth at the doore i. e. the effect of sinne which is punishment and misery is ready to attach thee And Gen. 19.15 Arise take thy Wife and thy two Daughters which are heere lest thou bee consumed in the iniquity of the City i. e. in the destruction or punishment of the City And Gen. 31.39 That which was torne of Beasts I brought it not unto thee I bare the losse of it where the Hebrew word is Achtenah i. e. I sinned for it q. d. I suffered for it as if the sinne or fault had beene mine And Levit. 22.9 They shall therefore keepe mine Ordinances lest they beare sinne for it i. e. lest they suffer death for it as appeares by the words following which are but the sense of these and dye therefore And Levit. 24.15 Whosoever curseth his God shall beare his sinne i. e. Hee shall surely bee put to death For so the words are explicated in the next verse And Rom. 5.12 And so Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned i. e. For that in Adam all dyed as afterward among the examples of the Calamitous shall bee more amply declared And Rom. 5.19 By one mans disobedience many were made sinners i. e. Were made mortall and necessitated to dye for the Greeke is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Constituted ordained or appoynted sinners or mortall for in other places of our last Translation so many wayes that Verbe is Englished and heereto other vulgar Translations agree for the Italian hath it constituted sinners and the French rendred sinners But then by Sinners wee must understand mortall or made to dye because men