and effects only that an internal cause then should be put for an external effect must needs be most unusual Entred into the World We may understand this Entrance of Sin in divers senses and that very Orthodoxally 1. Sin was not in the beginning for it had no being before the Entring and therefore was no eternal evil principle but only the issue of some inordinate and irregular Act. 2. It entered not as a creature or substance that had some existence in it self but as a vicious accident that could not subsist without a Subject in which it must inhere And therefore though it entred into our Nature and substance yet our nature and Substance it was not 3. It entered not of it self but by means by one man by a second cause Therefore himself grants Sin had its beginning and thence let the fault and guilt be fetcht causally what need is there to seek further than the beginning why then is there such prying into the first cause such disputing such labouring to entitle hereunto his Decreeing his ordaining and permitting disposing dispensing c. For so indeed the most we do is bus to disparage and dishonour him in his glorious Titles and Attribut It is enough for us to beleeve him to be just wise good c. in all things because he cannot possibly be otherwise although in some dispensations it is not possible for us to comprehend him 4 If entred into Loe the Apostle speaks plainly of an ingression not as of an accession of a thing inward and not outward only doubtless then it must needs be something inherent and not imputed only 5. It entred into the World {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} it came into even the reduplicated praeposition is a note of more intimate and peculiar manner of introduction namely by way of Generation and Propagation not by Temptation nor by Imitation not by Temptation for so it came from the Devil to Eve not by Imitation for so it came from Eve to Adam but by Propagation for so it came from Adam to us all Had it been otherwise than so Sin could not in any adaptness or propriety have been said to have Entred into the world but the world must then have caused it and called it and sought it and brought it and taught it to it self And death by Sin that is to say by the same Sin which came into the world by one Man namely the Original So then death it is that cannot be denied But now men must be Judges and take upon them to determine what kind of death albeit the Apostle speak it never so indefinitely He must mean temporal death says he well and thus he may inferr it because St. Paul speaks of such a Death as entred into this world and that 's but temporal But then he ought to observe withall that St. Paul speaks here not only of Deaths first Entrance but of Deaths through passage now such a passage is out of the world and beyond it and so must be eternal But he objects eternal death did not pass upon all men That 's easie to be answered from some of his own words The Sentence did though the Execution did not in the one was the Divine Justice to be magnified and his Mercy in the other Thus the Divine Attributes know how to save and to exalt themselves on either side if men would not seek to make them seem to clash by humbling those high things to their low and weak apprehensions And so Death passed upon all men sc. Death entred by Sin and so by Sin Death passed So that whether we consider the terminus a quo or ad quem we may directly hence collect that Death even the coporal as well as the eternal was not the sequel or necessity of Nature but even the penalty and wages of Sin because death is a separation quite contrary to the natural union especially to that of Nature in her integrity and original perfection But say that because of a composition and that of contrary Elements there might be nevertheless some kind of mutation migration melioration yet this was far from separation dissolution confusion and that dolorous and ignominious execrable and damnable This makes me I cannot so well brook or digest those passages of his His Sin left him to his Nature we returned to the state of meer nature of our prime creation thrust back to the form of Nature was remanded to his mortal natural State means he to a corrupt state of Nature that was not the former or from the prime Creation or means he by the form of Nature that of Natures first forming why that was after the Divine Image and similitude or means he by meer Nature those they call Pure Naturals which indeed are nothing because Nature cannot be so abstractly considered but either in the state of Integrity or in the state of Corruption a third state before between of after those two never was and therefore is not to be imagined Ever since the Fall and Original Sin we aptly conceive that there is a difference still to be made betwixt the substance of Nature and the corruption of Nature But that this Nature and this corruption was ever separated in any Christ only excepted we beleeve not or that there shall be a State of pure Naturals again till the Resurrection of the Dead We all know and beleeve Adam by his disobedience defected and fell from what he was before sc. from the Image and Original Righteousness but that by his Sin he fell into a Nature or state which he had before or without original righteousness that we understand not not yet of any remanding obtruding or returning thither Indeed we read God said Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return Gen. 3. 19. but that noted only some materials in part but no certain state neither had that dust returned to the dust but that the Image and righteousness was forfeited and lost For we see it was so not by a natural propensity so much as by a provoked Commination Besides this methinks he says something to oppose himself in this part when he says our Nature is of Gods making and consequently is good or Nature is almost the same c. What good and yet punished nay and we remanded to it for a punishment What almost the same in goodness and yet nothing the same in immortality and the blessing Thus here again Gods Justice is brought upon the Stage nay and upon the rack too especially by our scanning betwixt the two Terms of Death entring by one man and Death passing upon all men For we cry why the punishment and how of all for one so forth Mean while it is not considered by us Nay not believed how we were all in the lump loyns of that one which remains hereafter to be demonstrated only thus much is now to be said That while the Divine Attributes are pretended for saved harmless by us either
punishment but no fault of sin properly defiling so the Pontificians and especially their Scholasticks That it is neither defection depravation corruption nor truly and properly a Sin but only an affliction or punishment descending upon posterity through the guilt of Adams transgression like as to be born a Slave or a Bastard is his shame only and not his sin That nothing was born in us and with us which was not good and the very work of God That Adams disobedience was in no wise ours neither were we therefore in any wise obnoxious to eternal death so the Pighians and the Catharinians That we become infected by Original sin not by way of Generation or Propagation but only by way of imitation and outward occasion That the death of the body is the sequel of Nature and no punishment for sin whether original or actual so the Socinians and Racovians That Original sin is not a vicious accident or adjunct but is become our very Nature Essence and Substance the very heart and flesh and body and soul so the Flaccians and Substantialists That a mans meer pure naturals notwithstanding the Fall are good and perfect That Original sin is but like a little spot upon the skin or light wound for all which there remain still in a man his natural capacities dispositions powers and forces to Good That Men from their Mothers womb are as fully endowed with Liberty and Freewill as Adam was before his fall That Original sin to a man's Freewill is but like Garlick to a Loadstone easily wipt off and so it falls to work as fresh as at the first That the Adamical will or will from Adams fall hath it self not merely passive in the act of Conversion but is thereunto actively cooperating together with God so the Erasmians the Sunergicts and Arminians That Original sin was but St. Augustins dream and Puppet That Infants under the New Testament are not born in Original sin That there 's no necessity to baptize Infants with respect to any benefit they thus can have against it That Original sin and all other is to be remedied only by revelations and raptures of the Spirit without any use either of Word or Sacraments so the Swenckfeldians the Enthousiasts Anabaptists Fanaticks and Familists That Original sin is not properly a sin but a Disease or a Condition or else figurative form of speaking viz. by a Metonymie may be so called so Zwinglius and some of the Zwinglians That God reprobates God damns men absolutely because it is his will and pleasure without any respect or condition whether of Original or Actual sin so the Supralapsarians Thus you see Sir what a crowd of Errors have obtruded only through mens leaning to their own understandings amongst which more than once this Author may find his own which to me at first view seems so like to diverse of the aforesaid Errors that taken up in strict syllables I begin to suspect it would not only appear so but appear so and much more But I look not upon him in a likenesse to them but in some unlikenesse to the Holy Scriptures and the Church of England taking his way of understanding it to be another both to what the first teaches to understand and in what the last would be understood And let him not think I speak this as one that would revile him but as one that according to his understanding must dissent from him using my liberty which I wish may be mutual but keeping my Charity nevertheless my understanding I doe faithfully and in all humility submit to those two witnesses neither will I oppose him in any thing but what I receive from them they that will undertake him in other passages that fall not directly within this compass let them do it as they shall find themselves concerned in it or called to it This I take to be the safest way to begin and if he will keep his own word the readiest way to make an end For taking the 5 Chapter to the Romans to be objected against him If it be so saies he I have done if it be not so say I I have nothing to do Let me be beleeved both by him and you in this I have look'd again and again upon his Paraphrase with a single eye only to find out truth and proper truth if there explained hoping he will doe likewise with this Exposition when it shall come to his sight In which I make his own words mine if I use any violence I can easily be reproved For the Scripture Rom. 5. 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Wherefore therefore for this cause I begin with the search and examination of the letter for it is the Grammatical sifting that must render the plain Construction and then the Rhetorical glossing may come in to adorn with a certain circumlocution and therefore a broad Paraphrase if it be not unsuitable yet it is untimely when it shall presume in place before a narrower Exposition have done its part For this canse so I am bold to render it because I find it mostly so rendred in this Epistle to the Romans chap. 1. 26. and 13. 6. and 15. 9. which very inference serves to shew plainly the principal reason or cause why it pleased God to permit the Entrance and Passage of Original Sin viz. For this cause even for the reconciliation and attonements sake immediately before spoken of vers 10. and 11. Therefore God suffered this sin to enter into the world The Enmity or hainous aversion the wrath or dreadfull desert of Original Sin can never be more truly and fully considered and measured than in and by Christs death and satisfaction which who so contends to lessen either for Fault or Guilt such endeavours to extenuate the vertue and merits of Christs reconciling and attoning Gods great end in the Fall was to manifest and magnifie the infinite perfection of his own Son who then would not labour earnestly that Wisdom might principally be justified in the point Doth not God herein commend his love towards us vers. 8. How then can we imagin there should be the least prejudice upon the Divine Attributes in such an Ordination or Permission upon such a motive or intention But was this inferential motive heedlesly escaped or not rather purposely pretermitted to usurp a more uncontrouled licence in the wanton daliances of words that I may not call them petulancies of prophanation It is no reputation to a Phisician to say he hath cured us of an Evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that his Son may have the honour to have cured us I understand not that he that makes a necessity that he may find a remedy is like c. The sufficiency and excellency of our Saviour in
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
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
words of the Article and then his own words in the Antithesis And so leave it to himself according to his own promised temper and measure to reconcile them Neither wil I so much as once imagine that he hath less zeal for our Church than my self that so I may spare him the labour of a fruitlesse vow in being all his life confuting me Let him but shew how his own sayings are conformable or not repugnant to what the Article saith which to me and many others seem so contrary and we two have done nay are as we were in Faith and love of Christians one But if he goe otherwise to work I must take the confidence to tell him he may be all his life confuting and not confute Article Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk Antithesis All actual Sins doe not proceed from this Sin of Adam pag. 47. liberty and not Adams Sin is the cause of all our actual pag. 49. From the first Adam nothing descended to us but an evil example page 80. not direct Sins to us in their natural abode but principles of Sin to us in their emanation pag. 81. who by imitation of his Transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God Article But it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the off-spring of Adam Antithesis The guilt of this Sin being imputed the same is conveyed to all their Posterity by ordinary generation this heap of errors pag. 29 30. Naturally it cannot be pag. 32. not that we bring it upon our shoulders into the world with us pag. 78. if God hath given us a Nature by derivation which is wholly corrupted c. pag. 96. that Adams Sin is ours Metonymically and impropeâ—rly pag. 127. Article Whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil so that the Flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit Antithesis The evil did so descend upon us that we were left in powers and capacities to serve and glorifie God pag. 16. That by this Sin our first Parents fell from their Original righteousness c. this heap of errors c. pag. 29 30. I can by no means approve that by this we are disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil pag. 39. his nature was not spoiled by that Sin he was not wholly inclined to all evil pag. 40 46 47. Article And therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth Gods wrath and Damnation Antithesis Original Sin doth in its own Nature bring guilt upon the Sinner whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God c. this heap of Errors pag. 30. It cannot be just for God to damn us for being in a state of calamity to which state we entred no way but by his constitution and decree pag. 38. if it be intollerable to damn Children for the Sin of Adam then it is intollerable to say it is damnable pag. 59. Is it against Gods goodness that Infants should be damn'd for Original Sin c. pag. 67. It is against Gods Justice to damn us for the fault of another pag. 63. Children born in Christ and not in Adam c. pag. 74. born beloved and quitted from wrath c. pag. 75. born in the accounts of the Divine favour pag. 77. if God decrees us to be born Sinners c. if God does damn any for that c. pag. 94. if God does cast Infants into Hell for the Sin of others c. pag. 96. It is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the eternal bonds of Hell by Adam pag. 125. The Judgement which for Adams Sin came into the condemnation of the world was nothing but temporal death pag. 126. Article And this infection of Nature doth remain yea in them that are regenerated whereby the lust of the flesh c. Antithesis The corruption of nature remains in the regenerate c. this heap of errors pag. 29 30. I can by no means approve that our natural corruption in the regenerate still remains and is still properly a Sin pag. 39. That our natural corruption in the regenerate still remains and is still a Sin and properly a Sin I have I confesse heartily opposed it c. pag. 49. 52. Article And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized yet the Apostle doth confesse that concupiscence and lust hath of it self the nature of Sin Antithesis This will follow that Adam's Sinne hath done some mischief that the grace of Christ can never cure though it be pardoned and mortified yet still remains and is still a Sin is perfect Non-sense pag. 51. we are rescued from Adam before we were born else Adam's Sin prevailed really in some periods and by some effects for which God in Christ had provided no remedy pag. 74. It is a Sin Metonymically and just so in Baptism it is taken away pag. 103. Qui Ecclesiae renititur et restitit in Ecclesià se esse confidit Cyprian de simp. Praelat SIR BE pleased to know that all the errors which have been about Original Sin have risen chiefly through want of a perfect Definition or compleat Description of it some and they not the least Hereticks have contended against all definition others have been so various in defining and so incompleat in describing that they have administred but matter unto more contention I am perswaded that out of this place in the 5 to the Romans a perfect Definition or very compleat Description might be made and that such as might comprehend both the name and nature and subject and derivation and cause and effects and remedy My short time and shorter abilities will not now suffer me to venture upon it I have done my Task and I hope in some part answered my Title and your expectation such as I couâ—d or could so suddenly make it I send it humbly to your hands and through them if you think meet to the world All that I will now say of this Author is this That he hath erred learnedly far unlike the many senselesse and scurrilous Hereticks and Schismaticks of this our exulcerated age And I hope his own learning will let him see his Error Otherwise he must think others are not so unlearned as for him to impose upon them Rather than so I could most heartily wish one more learned in the Truth than my self may yet more particularly undertake him To you Sir I need say nothing you are known And for my self I need say as little to you you know Sir Your Minister Friend and Servant JOHN GAULE FINIS