want of necessary grace to innocent nature as the adversaries think is plain for necessary grace hath some sufficiency to its ends and go it it is called sufficient grace by the adversaries commonly But that which never attaineth its end in any one person in the World in their own judgment is not sufficient It is their common and last argument against our doctrine of special effectual grace given to all the elect as distinct from that sufficient grace which say the Dominicans is given to others that the grace is not sufficient that never proveth effectual in any We may much more confidently say so here when we speak of the whole World that the grace is not sufficient that never is was or will be effectual in any If it suffice to make the event naturally possible yet not to remove the moral impossibility 3. And that God is the Author of the Law that forbiddeth sin and of innocent nature is granted and past doubt The certainty of this universal event cannot come from a contingent cause as such The will is naturally free that chooseth but it is not morally free or else the World would not choose evil So that it is certain that if there be no original sin the cause of this universal event that all men sin must be resolved to be somewhat in nature or something in providence of which God is the cause If God have so framed pure nature and so order the affairs of the World that no man on earth shall eventually escape the sin which he so much prohibiteth and abhorreth it must needs follow that he is the moral reputative cause at least And yet it is one of the pretences against the doctrine of original sin that it maketh God the Author of it in infants when it 's they that make him the Author of it in all Seeing therefore that sin hath so overspread the World that all men sin in all Countries in all Ages except Christ this must proceed either from mans natural principles and so be chargeable upon God his Maker or it is the fruit of original sin and to be charged on our first Parents and our selves Arg. 19. If infants have in their corrupted natures a virtual enmity to God and Holiness then have they original sin but such an enmity they have I mean in disposition seed or habit go they have original sin The antecedent or minor I prove 1. From the common experience of the World that manifest such an enmity as soon as they come to the use of reason and that maintain it so obstinately till renewing grace do overcome it How early do they shew an aversness to the work and ends for which they were created How little do the precepts of Parents or Teachers and all the means of grace themselves to conquer it in the most And where it is most conquered even in the godly it is most confessed because there is a troublesome remnant of it still so that there is no man in the World that hath not more or less of it in him the wicked being under the power of it and the godly under the trouble of these remainders 2. From Gen. 3. 15. Joh. 3. 5 6. Rom. 8. 3 5 6 7 8 9. Rom. 7. 21 23 24 25 compared In Joh. 3. 6. we find that flesh begets but flesh That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that go a new birth by the spirit is necessary to make us spiritual of which before In Rom. 8. we find that it was through the flesh that the Law was weak and that God sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh not as sinful but as flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Where it is undeniable that by flesh is not meant sin it self for then it had not been called sinful nor the subject of sin nor Christ said to have taken the likeness of it and go the word flesh here is taken in no worse a sense than in Joh. 3. 6. We find here also that all flesh is universally called sinful which Christ took the likeness of And Christ took the likeness of infants and that first only growing up to the likeness of the adult infants go have sinful flesh And ver 5 6. This flesh as the principle that prevaileth in some is opposed to the spirit which prevaileth in others and their fruits opposed the one sort mind fleshly things the other spiritual things and death belongs to one and life and peace to the other And ver 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be And ver 8. They that are in the flesh cannot please God that is they that have not the spirit to subdue and mortify the flesh as it is explained ver 9. And if any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of his So that flesh without spirit which is now mans natural estate is a principle of enmity and rebellion and proves men none of Christ's and in a state of death And many Expositors judge that in Gen. 3. 15. such being none of Christ's till they have the spirit are annumerated to the serpents seed that hath the enmity against the spiritual seed which so sheweth it self when they come to age that as Cain by Abel and Ishmael by Isaack so still He that is born after the flesh persecuteth him that is born after the spirit if not restrained Gal. 4. 29. And Rom. 7. 18. I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing that is in Paul so far as he was without the spirit And as this innate universal enmity is thus proved so it is proved to be sin 1. By the Law of nature which tells us that an habitual enmity of the rational creature against God and Holiness is sin if any thing be sin It is an inclination or disposition contrary to the primitive nature and moral image of God in man and contrary to what our relation to God importeth and as it is commonly said of actual hatred of God it may as truly if not much more evidently be said of this dispositive virtual enmity that it is an evil that cannot become good and so naturally sin that it can be no other 2. It 's proved to be sin by the express assertion of the Text. Rom. 8. 3. 10. it is sinful flesh and the subject of sin till the spirit come Ver. 9. it proves them none of Christ ' s. Rom. 7. 14. 17. 20. 24 25. it is called in-dwelling sin and a Law of sin and to be carnal is to be sold under sin 3. From the effects which nothing can produce but sin They cannot be subject to the Law of God They please not God To be carnally minded is death c. Rom. 8. So 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural meerly animal man now in his corrupt estate receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness
which the first sin did not bring us under As to the pain of loss it is clear because when we have forfeited all we can forfeit no more but by the first sin we forfeited all But this is not because the sin in its own nature hath not the same demerit as the first but because man is capable of no greater privation than he hath incurred already nor of any greater torment if the first sin deserved as much torment as mans nature was capable of So that terminative here is no new super-added punishment according to the first Law But yet none may hence conclude that here is no new guilt because it is another fundamentaliter formaliter For divers relations may have the same Terminus We do by following sins incur a new and further obligation to the same penalty which would be to a greater penalty were we capable of it naturally When a Felon is guilty of death on one crime yet twenty bills may be brought in against him which may charge him with a manifold guilt though but of one death As a man may have a manifold right to one good thing which he possesseth and a right super-added to his first right as God hath the right of Redemption to us super-added to the right of Creation so may a sinner have super-added and manifold obligations to the same punishment Yet here we see some difference between our first guilt of Adam's sin and all super-added guilt that the first having deprived us of all our felicity none that follows can deprive us of any more except of the mercies new given us by the Gospel which the meer sins of Parents shall deprive no man of that disowneth them Prop. 22. Though it be but an imperfect analogical guilt which the act of Adam's or other Parents sin doth directly and immediately leave upon us yet the corruption or pravity of our own nature inherent in each person which by Adam's sin was introduced doth bring on us a further guilt And so mediately the said actual sin doth bring it Which occasioneth so many Protestant Divines to place original sin as ours in this pravity alone Prop. 23. Though this natural depravedness may seem to infer a lesser guilt because it is not voluntary as our actual sins are Yet 1. we being seminally in him that voluntarily caused it and 2. it being the habitual pravity of the will it self and so far voluntary and 3. therefore containing virtually all future actual voluntary sins 4. and being more contrary to God's holy nature and will than one single actual sin would be it hath therefore many aggravations instead of that one which it seemeth to have less of And so must needs bring a true and proper obligation to punishment till Christ dissolve it as well as actual sins Prop. 24. It seems to me that the sins of neerer Parents may do much to the corrupting of our natures as well as the sin of Adam and to increase the pravity that from his only sin would have been upon them Proved 1. There is the same reason why the sins of immediate Parents should deprave the nature of Posterity as there is that Adam's sin should do it Some Divines say that God took away his image from Adam some that he took away his spirit and so the loss of his image followed some that Adam's sin did it self destroy or blot out that image As to the first I say 1. It is not sound because it makes God the most proper immediate if not the only true efficient cause of sin and of the sinning sin which is the worst of sins Also because there is no word of God that saith any such thing 2. If it were true the sin of Cain deserved the same as well as the sin of Adam As to the second opinion I say 1. It is yet undetermined de nomine among Divines whether it be not the Redeemer only that giveth the spirit and whether it can properly be said that God gave his spirit to Adam in innocency though I am for the affirmative 2. But suppose that there be some conserving aid which God did withdraw by what name soever it be called yet thaat withdrawing was in order of nature consequential to mans sinning and not before it and that sin it self did deprave the soul 3. The sin of Cain deserveth the like desertion as well as the sin of Adam but man's nature is not now capable of it in the same sort as then it was because then we were innocent and had the perfect image of God upon us and were capable of losing it but now we have lost it already our Parents sins can but remove us further from God and hinder our recovery The third opinion seemeth most warrantable that Adam put away or blotted out God's image and so depraved his own soul for which see Capel of Tempt and Thes Salmuriens Vol. 1. disp de statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam sect 19 20 21. But there is the same reason why Cain's sin should deprive his posterity of God's image save only that they had not the same to lose for the destructive nature of the sin is the same and so is the merit And though they have not that perfect image of God now to lose yet they have some remnants of moral virtue assisted by the light and law of nature and the nature of man is capable of being made worse than yet it is And there is the same reason why Cain's sin may make it worse as there is why Adam's may make it bad Man's fall was a change of his end He first took God for his ultimate end and chief good He was seduced to take him for one that envied his felicity and for a liar and to seek his felicity in the creature against the command of God The ultimate end of man's actions being thus changed all moral good is so far perverted for all means and subordinate ends depend on it And so the stream of mans actions are turned into a wrong channel the sensitive appetite is hereupon become the master-principle in the soul as ruling the rest For as Placaeus saith ubi sup Cujus facultatis finis proximus est hominis ultimus ea caeteris omnibus facultatibus tanquam architectonica imperat that faculty whose neerest end is mans ultimate end doth rule all the other faculties as the master of the work And thus man being turned finally to sensibles from God his nature is depraved and God's image defaced Yet is not the soul removed to the utmost distance from God for then he should be as bad as the Devils and all men should be equally evil and the sensitive appetite would so uncontrouledly reign that man would be worse than bruitified his reason serving only to purvey for the flesh so that the light and law of nature would not restrain him nor any thoughts of a God and a life everlasting once stop him in his sin Now it is apparent
of Adam's actual sin so far as we are guilty and we being as truly the children of our neere Parents as of him and seminally in them as well as in him it follows that we have the same natural interest in their sins as in his and therefore the same guilt and reason why God should impute them to us Unless the change of Laws do make a difference which if it do it can be no more than by adding the Law of Grace to that of Nature to remedy its obligation For the nature of things being still the same the same Law of nature still remains and therefore children must now be naturally guilty of all Parents sins as well as then before that guilt be dissolved by remission Though now God will not punish the adult meerly for Parents sins imputed to us yet he might do it if he would supposing he had not by the Law of Grace determined the contrary if it be proved that he might do it then Moreover as then God might suppose a civil interest in Adam's sin as we were parts-future of the same World of mankind on presupposition of our natural interest as his off-spring so now though our Parents be not the root of mankind as Adam was and that 's the main difference yet seeing our neerest Parents may be the root of Families or other Societies whereof God is also the Rector he may suppose another sort of civil interest or guilt of their sins upon us As he imputed Adam's sin to us as he was Rector of all mankind so may he our neerer Parents as he is Ruler of a Family or of some more remote as Ruler of a Common-wealth Obj. But that Law which made us guilty of Adam's sin is abrogated and instead of it is made the Law of Grace God doth not now say to any In the day thou sinnest thou shalt die Answ I know that commination stands not alone and unremedied and I yield that the promissory part is ceased but still every sin doth leave upon us a guilt of death till Christ take it off or else what need could we have of the pardon of it Obj. But that Law was particular and positive in the day thou eatest thou shalt die go it is ceased Answ The particular prohibition of that act of eating is ceased cessante objecto But that particular was grounded on and presupposed a general and that which you call positive how fitly I now enquire not was first natural as to the duness of penalty for each particular sin The Law of nature first saith death is the due wages of sin or every sin deserveth death and this Law doth still remain So that though as to the event we have not that reason to expect eternal death now for Parents sins nor for every sinful act of our own as before the promise of Christ we might have had yet that is not because the Law is abrogated which is the very standing Law of nature nor because now each sin deserveth not such death but because we have now a remedy at hand to put away the guilt I am sure this is the commonest judgment of those Divines that are most against Arminianism for they maintain that all the unbelievers are still under the Law of works it self as to the cursing and punishing power Arg. 2. If we receive the guilt of one sin from our immediate Parents then may we as well receive the guilt of more But we do receive the guilt of one from them go The antecedent is plain For we receive from them the guilt of Adam's sin It is theirs before it can be ours Adam delivered it not immediately to us As we received our nature and persons from our neerest Parents so did we therewith our guilt of that sin The consequence is proved in that there is the same reason of both Why did not our Parents propagate us free from the guilt of Adam's sin Because they were not free from it themselves naturally and therefore cannot give us a better nature than they have themselves And so on the same reason it must follow that being themselves guilty of other sins they cannot convey to us a nature not guilty of them If one be therefore ours because it was first theirs and our nature from them the other must be so too Obj. The Law makes the difference for God hath not made us liable to Justice for our neerer Parents sins as he did for the first Answ This is already answered The Law indeed makes a difference as to the event and execution and actual remaining obligation but not as to the desert The Law declares and shews men to be as they are and doth not judge unequally of men that are equal or of equal actions The same Law though remedied is still so far in force Obj. Our Parents if faithful are pardoned and justified and therefore cannot convey to us the guilt of any sin because they have it not themselves Answ It must be carefully understood that pardon takes not away 1. either the reatum culpae so as that person should hereafter be judged not to have done what he did or not to have sinned in so doing 2. nor yet the natural merit of punishment as if that sin and the person for it did cease to deserve death but only it remitteth the punishment deserved and takes away the legal effectual obligation to punishment or that duness of punishment which must bring it upon us So that Parents may nevertheless convey to their children that natural desert which was not removed from themselves 2. And then remission being a free act of God extendeth no further than he pleaseth and therefore unless the covenant to the faithful and their seed do pardon all their guilt to their seed as well as themselves the very effectual obligation to punishment will follow the natural desert of it to those children that have not such a remission And if this would prove any thing it would prove us not guilty of Adam's sin Arg. 3. If we are guilty of more of Adam's sins than the first or than the eating of the forbidden fruit then on the same grounds we may be guilty of the sins of our neerer Parents But the antecedent is true go so is the consequent The antecedent is proved thus If there were the same causes to make us guilty of Adam's following sins as of the first then thâ—â—e is the same guilt But there were the same causes go 1. We were seminally in Adam as well when he committed his second sin as his first 2. The same Law as to the precept and threatning was in force as de futuro when he committed his second sin as when he committed the first 1. It cannot be doubted but Adam sinned oft between the time of his eating the fruit and God's making the promise of a Redeemer For his soul being depraved and turned into a wrong course of action must needs act sinfully 2. Yea we could not be guilty
Prophets 3. He saith that the righteous blood shed by their Fathers shall come on them so that it appeareth that it is not only their own imitation of their Parents blood shed that comes on them but even that very blood that was shed by their Parents before they were born 4. He gives the reason from their natural participation whom ye slew and ye are the children of them that killed c. q. d. In as much as your Parents did it and you have your nature from them it 's just that all this be imputed to you and that you suffer as the doers of it your selves which yet you might have remedied by leaving their sinful ways but being your selves imitaters of them you shall bear both the sins which they and which your selves have committed Arg. 13. Psal 109. 9 10 12 13 14 15 16. Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg and let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places Neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children let his posterity be cut off and in the generation following let their name be blotted out Let the iniquity of bis Fathers be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out Let them be before the Lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth Here seems to be as plain evidence that we may be justly punished for the sins of our neerer Parents as any is in Scripture to prove the imputation of Adam's sin 1. David desireth a curse upon this sinners posterity even before they are born or before he knows what they will prove 2. And this is not because of Adam's sin though that also lay upon them but as he expresseth it ver 16. because he remembred not to shew mercy but persecuted the poâ— and needy man c. 3. Yea he desireth that God would remember the iniquity of his Father and not blot out the sin of his Mother which cannot be meant of any punishment that David would have God inflict on that Father or Mother He is not of a spirit so cruel and contrary to the Gospel as to desire that God would not forgive them that are dead long ago and either in joy or misery when he knew not whether they died penitently or impenitently If any say that he did know by the spirit of prophesie or special vision that they did die impenitently and are in hell 1. I desire them that affirm it to prove it 2. If so what need he desire that God would not forgive them or blot out their sin which he knew was now beyond possibility 3. But the next words in the Text shew that he speaks only of the sin of the dead Ancestors as it lieth on the posterity and not on themselves For as it was not the dead but the living that David prayeth against so he next saith Let them be before the Lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth So that it is a penalty on him that then was living and upon his posterity that David prays for even that his Parents sin may be remembred against him and his sin remembred against his children and not that any of them may be remembred against the dead who for ought he knew might some of them be pardoned in Heaven Obj. This might be an unlawful Prayer Answ Then would it not be recorded among the sacred forms which were dictated by the Holy Ghost without one word of check or reprehension Obj. It is but temporal judgments that David desires for the Parents sin Answ 1. It 's known that the judgments and blessings of God are mostly expressed in the old Testament as consisting in things temporal because it was not yet the fulness of time for Grace and the great fruits and concomitants of it to be revealed to the full Life and immortality are brought to light in a greater measure in the Gospel 2. I have proved in the beginning that If God may inflict temporal death on children for Parents sin then also may he inflict eternal as to the penalty of loss and so much of the pain of sense as the apprehension of that loss must needs infer He that depriveth man of life depriveth him of all the comforts of it and he that may do so may leave him his life without those comforts if he please Arg. 14. Psal 137. 9. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Here Babylon's children are to be dashed against the stones not only for Adam's but their neerer Parents sins As is plain in that those are given as the reason in the Psalm Arg. 15. Job 21. 19. God layeth up his iniquity for his children that is a punishment for his very iniquity So Job 27. 14. If his children be multiplied it is for the sword and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with bread Those that remain of him shall be buried in death So Job 17. 5. Even the eyes of his children shall fail So Job 5. 4. Arg. 16. The infants were to be part of the fasting mourning repenting sanctified Assembly Joel 2. 15 16. which was not to lament Adam's sin only but their later sins go the infants had some sort of participation in the guilt and danger of punishment Arg. 17. Nahum 3. 10. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets This mentioned as God's punishment for Parents sins The like is oft in the Lament So Hos 13. 16. Samaria shall become desolate for she hath rebelled against her God they shall fall by the sword their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child shall be rip'd up Arg. 18. Jer. 29. 32. Thus saith the Lord I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his seed because he hath taught rebellion against the Lord. Mark here it is called punishing his seed So of Jehoiakim Jer. 36. 31. I will punish him and his seed c. So Jer. 22. 28 30. Arg. 19. Isa 14. 20. The seed of evil doers shall never be renowned Isa 1. 4. A people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers Psal 21. 10. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth and their seed from among the children of men Psal 37. 28. The seed of the wicked shall be cut off So Psal 106. 27. And it 's oft made a reproach and a note of men liable to contempt as Isa 57. 3. Ye sons of the Sorceress the seed of the Adulterer and the Whore so oft Mal. 2. 15. may have somewhat to this sense And wherefore one that he might seek a godly seed whereof one reason may be when they contract no guilt of Parents Adultery I might here also draw an argument not contemptible from the interest of the seed of the faithful in the benefits of free Grace But because I have been so long I will add but one more and in that sum up
which it hath not go Adam could not convey to Cain or Abel by generation a nature that was innocent and holy when he had none but a guilty sinful nature himself As when Adam had sinned each part of his body did bear its part in the guilt and if a leg or an arm had been cut off from him that cutting off would not make it become innocent but at the resurrection it shall bear its share of penalty so the embrio and the seed blood and spirits that caused it were as real parts of the Parents once as a leg or arm and when they were parts they could not be innocent otherwise you may as well say that the hand or foot was innocent and go they could not meerly by birth become innocent It is not the separation of the infant from the mother that can put away the guilt that once it had If any say that a leg or arm themselves have no sin or guilt but all is in the will they must then make the body to be no part of the man and must deny its pain and its resurrection to everlasting pain or joy It 's granted that the will is the first and chief seat of moral good or evil but from thence the whole man doth participate thereof and go it is the man that is condemned or justified punished or rewarded and not the will only Obj. But the soul was no part of the Parent though the body were no nor the body neither for it is in a continual flux and we have not the same body at seven years old which we received from our Parents Answ 1. This argument as to the body is it by which our novel Infidels do think to reason us out of the belief and hopes of a resurrection of these same numerical bodies and by the same reason you may as effectually prove that the body that committeth murder or adultery this year and dies seven years after shall not be condemned or punished for it because it is not the same body that committed the sin but this ingenious folly will save none from punishment nor prove them guiltless of original sin So much is permanent as doth essentially constitute and identify the body And for the soul 1. It is certain that it is essential to the man and certain that man begets a man and go certain that man begets the soul And though it be not by partition of the Parents soul yet is it a true generation and go the man begotten can be no better than he that begat Obj. If you say that the soul is ex traduce you will make it material and so mortal and a compound of two communicated souls conjoyned viz. the Fathers and the Mothers c. Answ If by materia be meant substantia quae potentia corpus est or substantia incompleta in potentia ad omnes formas which is Aristotle's materia prima or if any element or any body be hereby meant so we deny that the soul is material or that it is hence inferred to be such But if material be extended as far as substantial or so far as to comprehend spirits improperly then it is granted on both sides that the soul is material But supposing it taken in the usual sense I answer that God can cause spiritual substances to propagate their kind and go such propagation proveth neither their materiality or mortality no more than the creation of the first animals proved their immortality nor is it any inconvenience to grant that two souls do joyn in the communicative generation of a third as long as it is not by partition or deperdition of any of their substance no more than that two candles conjoyned should light a third But the large handling of this would require more time and words than we shall now spare I refer the Reader therefore to those that have handled this subject on purpose and particularly to Micraelius in his Ethnophronius It is not a Traduction e potentia materiae that we maintain The materiale seminis is but as the oyle to the flame to which the soul is conjunct The semen containeth quid immateriale the soul is in it not only in potentia but in actu as it is in the leg or arm of a man If you object that then the soul is divided and part of it dieth quum semen ejicitur moritur I answer Not so no more than it is divided when a man is beheaded or dieth when a leg or arm dieth that is cut off In brief we must not argue ab ignotiore nor deny a plain and certain truth that man begets man because we are uncertain of the manner of the propagation As men do in the controversy about Grace and Free-will so do they in this they divide what are to be conjoyned for fear of giving too much to the other side As one denieth special ascertaining Grace and another denieth Free-will when that Grace worketh by this Free-will so some deny God's part in the causing of the soul and some deny man's part because they are unskilful in discerning the concourse God doth as much in it as if man did nothing and is as fully the cause as if it were by a meer creation and man were no cause and yet he causeth it by man even in the way of natural procreation which by a stablished Law he appointed in the beginning and then gave man a living soul that might propagate living souls And more than so it is the soul that is the principal in procreating and being procreated and that spark of immortal life that is in semine doth by due cherishing of the further causes fabricate its own body and the soul as Scaliger saith ex Themistio sui domicilii non inquilina tantum est sed architecta under God And we are most certain that our knowledge of the way or manner of God's influx into and concourse with second causes is so much above our reach that we are unfit from presumptions about such a mystery to argue against a revealed truth Nay when we have conjectured at the manner it is our wisest course to confess we know it not But as the wind bloweth where it listeth and we hear the sound of it but know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is it in the out-goings of the spirit of God for the new birth and in like manner of his causation of the natural birth But of these things we are certain 1. That the Parents beget the child man begets man by virtue of the nature first given them with the law or blessing annexed Increase and multiply and God's continued influence 2. That man's soul is not debilitated in its vegetative and sensitive operations by being rational 3. That go man begetteth not less than bruits He that saith the soul as vegetative and sensitive is not begotten makes man to beget less than bruits 4. Yea he makes him to beget nothing for the body or meer matter
to him nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned And it can be no better than sin that maketh spiritual things seem foolishness All the other Texts of Scripture commonly urged for Original sin I purposely pass over because in Commentaries and Controversies they are so frequently handled Arg. 20. My last Argument is from the universal consent of the Church of God if not of most of the Philosophers also In so great a point it is not safe to go against the consent of the universal Church that hath so much in Scripture to encourage and warrant it But the deniers of Original sin do go against the consent of the universal Church as is proved 1. From the known confessions of all the Churches that own Original sin 2. In that general Councils have asserted it 3. And have condemned those as Hereticks that denied it And so did divers received Provincial Councils I shall now recite only the words of the Concil 2. Melevitan Arausican and the Popish Council of Trent The first Can. 2. saith Item placuit ut quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari sed nihil ex Adam trahere Originalis peccati quod regenerationis lavacro expietur unde sit consequens ut in eis forma baptismatis in remissionem peceatorum non vera sed falsa intelligatur Anathema sit Quoniam non aliter intelligendum est quod ait Apostolus Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum per peccatum mors ita in omnes homines pertransiit in quo omnes peccaverunt nisi quemadmodum Ecclesia Catholica ubique diffusa semper intellexit Propter hanc enim regulam fidei etiam parvuli qui nihil peccatorum in semetipsis adhuc committere potuerunt ideo in peccatorum remissionem veraciter baptizantur ut in eis regeneratione mundetur quod generatione traxerunt Augustine was one in this General Council So Arausican 2. Can. 1. and 2. Siquis soli Adae praevaricationem suam non ejus propagini asserit nocuisse aut certe mortem tantum corporis quae poena peccati est non autem peccatum quod mors est animae per unùm hominem in omne genus humanum transiisse testatur injustitiam Deo dabit contradicens Apostolo dicenti Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum per peccatum mors in omnes homines pertransiit in quo omnes peccaverunt Ita Concil Diospol alia I shall add the Council of Trent because the adversaries should be ashamed to be less Oxthodox than Papists and that they may see the continuance of the Tradition which the Concil Melevit plead against Pelagius They use the words of the former Councils Sess 5. Can. 2. and 4. Siquis soli Adae praevaricationem suam non aliis etiam ejus propagini asserit nocuisse acceptam a Deo sanctitatem justitiam quam perdidit non nobis sed sibi soli perdidisse inquinatoque illo per inobedientiae peccatum mortem poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum secundum communem legem transfudisse non autem Peccatum cui pro poena debebatur utraque mors corporis viz. animae Anathema sit cum contradicat Apostolo dicenti Per unum hominem c. Can. 4. Siquis parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat etiamsi fuerint a baptizatis parentibus orti aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari sed nihil ex Adam trahere Originalis peccati quod regenerationis lavacro necesse sit expiari ad vitam aeternam consequendam unde sit consequens ut in eis forma baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera sed falsa intelligatur Anathema sit Quoniam non aliter intelligendum quod ait Apostolus Per unum hominem c. nisi quâ—madmodum Ecclesia Catholica ubique diffusa semper intelleâ—â—it and so on as above Conc. Mel. Hanc fidei sanctorum patrum normam imitandâ— haec sancta synodus fatetur declarat in baptismate per Jesu Christi gratiam quam confert continet non modo remitti reatum originalis peccati sed totum id auferri quod veram propriam rationem peccati habet These last words Binnius leaves out but they are in him and others repeated again in Can. 5. so that they are their own Crabb also leaves them out and both of them leave out some other words which Caranza puts in but the difference reacheth not to any thing material to our controversy So that it 's apparent that even the Church of Rome do Anathematize those that hold not infants to have Original sin truly so called before Baptism Their assertion of the abolition of all that is truly sin by baptism is more than they found in the Concil Melevit or any of the ancient ones If to be Anathematized by the Council of Trent be nothing yet with those men that take general Councils to be the supreme power in the Church on earth and separate from others for not obeying them in some Ceremonies or indifferent things methinks the Curses of the ancient Councils and that on the account of differences in points of Faith should seem considerable The consent of the Reformed Churches is so well known that I need not recite their words And though the English Articles mention only our pravity and say nothing of Adam's sin imputed or made ours whether by forgetfulness or by moderation not imposing that which some deny yet they deny it not and elsewhere the Church of England seemeth to own it Obj. 1. That which is not voluntary is not sin Original corruption or guilt is not voluntary go it is not sin Answ I deny the minor I before answered that there is a threefold voluntariness 1. Actual 2. Reputative or moral by participation 3. Habitual Original sin is voluntary in both the last senses It was the act of his will that was virtually and reputaâ—ively ours and the corruption is the habit of our wills and the privation of good habits and that which is habitual is more voluntary than that which is but some single Act. Obj. 2. That which never was in our power to prevent is not sin But c. go c. Answ It was in our power as we were in Adam It was in his power from whom by the established Law or order of providence we were to derive our nature That habits are good or evil as well as acts I hope few will deny And whereas it is objected that only such habits as are the effects or consequents of our acts are sinful I further answer 1. If it be so it is eo nomine because they are the consequents of our acts that they are sinful or else for some other formal reason Not because such or as such for it 's most certain that many effects of sin
that there is the same natural and meritorious force in Cain's sin to turn his nature further from God as was in Adam's to turn it so far away Or if man were at the worst yet his following sins have the same power to fix him in that misery as his first had to bring him into it For they also are a wilful turning from God to the creature as well as the first Arg. 2. It is past all doubt that the sinners own personal nature is made worse by his own actual sin experience proves it too fully Scripture saith that they that have been accustomed to do evil can no more learn to do well than a Blackmoor can change his skin or a Leopard his spots And there is no reason that I know of that can be given why a more corrupt Parent should not beget a child more corrupt and deliver him the sinful improvement of his pravity as well as that all sinful depraved Parents should beget depraved children And though this controversy be mixed with the great difficulties about the propagation of the soul and the matter of its corruption yet which way soever those be determined it makes not against the thing that I assert If the soul be ex traduce and so corrupted then the case is most easy If man beget the sensitive soul corrupted and God do then promove that to the excellency of being a rational soul as some think the material species of the phantasy is raised by the active intellect to be the intelligible immaterial species still there is the same reason why the more corrupt Parent should propagate a soul more corrupt as that all should propagate a corrupt one If the soul be depraved either by a taint from the body or by a willing accommodation of it self to the body through the force of the natural desire of union de quo vide Placaeum ubi supra as water to the shape of the vessel that it is put into still the reason holds the same for the degree of corruption as for the thing it self That God by way of penalty should create the soul sinful immediately seems plainly to make him the Author of sin But if it were so yet there is the same reason of demerit to provoke him to create the soul of Cain's son yet more sinful as there is in Adam's to provoke him to create it sinful at all Arg. 3. Besides experience assureth us that all children bring not an equal degree of pravity into the World if we may judge by their first exercise of reason or use of passions But if there were no difference made since it should seem that all should be corrupted alike further than God cureth any and so maketh a difference We see also that many of the children of the most vicious people are more vicious than the ordinary sort of men are We see also that some mens bodies being distempered by their vices they propagate those bodily distempers to their posterity which we evidently perceive do make a great alteration on the soul from whence we see some persons very sottish and silly yea some ideots and some extreme talkative some extreme passionate some lustful some malicious some gluttonous some drunkards and this above the corrupt inclination which appeareth in the ordinary sort of men and plainly sed by the temper of the body Obj. 1. If our corruption were increased by the sins of immediate Parents then the World would grow worse and worse and we should have been Devils long before this age Answ 1. Most Divines say that the first sin would have done all this if God in mercy had not prevented or remedied it 2. God still resolveth to keep the World in order under his Government and therefore restraineth corruption and will not suffer it to grow as according to its nature it would 3. This is one of the common benefits that the World receiveth by the grace of the Redeemer that they grow not as bad as else they would 4. For the sake of the Church God will restrain them Obj. 2. We see many of the worst men have good children Answ No mans corruptions do put his children into a remediless condition and therefore God may sanctifie whom and when he pleaseth So may he do also by the Parents themselves for all their sins and yet those sins do make them worse Obj. 3. Then you may say that Grace is propagated by generation from our immediate Parents as well as sin and yet experience telleth us the contrary Answ 1. This makes as much against the propagation of original corruption from Adam as from our neerer Parents If it were of any force it would be against both 2. There is so great a difference between grace and sin that quite alters the case For 1. Grace is something extrinsecally adventitious and now as to the cause of it and manner of working it supernatural but so is not sin 2. Grace is an adventitious perfecting quality Sin is a defect as it is in the rational faculties But defects are more easily propagated than adventitious qualities for one requireth nothing thereto but a defective nature for nothing can convey to another that which it hath not it self but the other requireth more than nature to its propagation No acquired knowledge or skill in Languages Sciences Arts or Manufactures are propagated to posterity by nature but the ignorance of these is natural 3. But above all it 's considerable that original sin so far as it containeth a positive inclination seems to be radically in the inordination of the sensitive appetite raging against the rule of reason though the rational faculty be corrupted too and gives up it self to the slavery of the sensitive yet the sensitive seems to be the root Now it is evident that nature doth much in propagation of the sensitive or else man should do less in generation than a beast But Grace is radically subjected in the rational faculties though by participation also it reach the sensitive and here nature doth less in propagation We see by experience that a natural gentleness and calmness of the passions and such other lower common virtues as are subjected in the sensitive part are born with some men and from the temperament of the body one man is more mild patient temperate than another but it is not so with the intellectual Perfections nor Christian Graces Faith Hope or Charity I shall now proceed to prove so much of the affirmative as I have here owned more than is now held viz. That there ariseth to children from the sins of their neerest Parents such an imperfect guilt so called by analogie of attribution as that God may in vindictive justice inflict on them for the same the penalty so called by the same analogy both of temporal death and of eternal at least as to the penalty of loss supposing that it be not pardoned through Christ And this I prove by these following Arguments Arg. 1. If we are guilty of
accidental benefits to nature as for conveying a nature deprived of them In case of privation the Parents cannot convey what they have not But though they had it yet it followeth not that they should convey it if it were a supervenient accident separable from nature as for example any right to a reward that Adam might be supposed to attain by his obedience this might be proper to himself 3. He addeth at least all the sins which Adam committed while we were in his loins must be imputed to us Answ I grant it and say that so they are yet with the fore-mentioned difference that the first sin depriving us of all title to all God's benefits the second could deprive us of no more and so could add no more guilt terminative but only fundamentaliter 4. He adds so should all the sins of our intermediate Parents seeing when they committed them we were as much in them as in Adam Answ I grant all with the last mentioned difference Let those that go on other grounds answer the Objector as well as they can 5. He adds yea the death of Adam should be so imputed to us for if he sinned as the Head of mankind why should he not also be punished in the same respect If we were not bound to obey that prohibition but in his person surely neither to be punished for the commination belongs no otherwise to us than the prohibition Answ But withal consider that though God might have satisfied his justice with destroying Adam and so putting an end to humane race yet 1. He was no way bound to do this He that a little before bid man encrease and multiply might let him enjoy his forfeited life that was no injustice 2. Yea when God had so lately made so glorious a structure for the demonstration and communication of his goodness c. it may seem in wisdom much fitter for him to let the sinning creature live while he provideth propoundeth and applyeth a remedy than presently to destroy the works that he had made though man deserved it 3. I pray you mark then the grounds that I go on I say not that we personally were then guilty in Adam but that we draw a guilt with our natures from Adam God having in just and merciful wisdom resolved that we shall survive and so humane nature be propagated it can be no other but a guilty nature that is so propagated which God is not bound to hinder but rather in wisdom not to hinder it if that might be called an obligation 6. It is further objected Moreover how did we sin in Adam actually who were never actually in him Answ 1. I say not that we then sinned in Adam properly no more than that we did exist in Adam For as I know that existere est esse extra causas so I know that the act of sin and the relation of guilt are accidents that must have an existent subject if they exist and therefore we cannot be sinners and guilty before we are But I say that when we first are we have a nature received from a guilty progenitor and therefore a guilty nature because he cannot convey to us the right to felicity which he lost 2. We were seminally in Adam and so sinned in him though I know as to personal actual existence this is but terminus diminuens yet is it more than meerly potential 7. It 's objected How could that act be voluntary as to us which was long past before that we had any will Answ As we did not personally exist in Adam so did we not will that act in Adam But yet when we received a will from Adam it was quaedam natura and guilty of what his will was guilty though not by the guilt of actual commission yet of derivation and participation And thus it is reputatively voluntary 8. It 's next replied to some of the common reasons on our part There was indeed humane nature in Adam but singular and divided from this of ours And if the first act of sin were an act of nature why not also the first act of generation yet no man will say that in Adam we did beget Cain or Seth. Answ 1. This makes nothing against me who say not that we then sinned in Adam properly but that we received a guilty nature from Adam which then began to be a sinful or guilty nature or person when it began to be a nature or person and before that was but a guilty seed 2. Faults and punishments being quid moral vel civile a political thing may be moraliter reputative transferred and therefore as a man may suffer as a membe◠〈◊〉 a sinful Society though personally innocent so might we as branches of mankind But generation being quid naturale there is no such ground for such an imputation or reputative translation of it So that the case is not alike 9. It follows And if Adam did deserve to himself a punishment equal to that his sin that is as great as God had threatned shall we think that Justice will require other punishments from innumerable other men for that same sin Answ Adam did deserve a punishment as great as his personal nature was capable of and also the same to all that should come from his loins If God had destroyed him before he had any posterity it would indeed have prevented the propagation of guilt by preventing the being of a capable subject but yet there would have been in Adam's sin a desert of such a propagated guilt or a reason for it on supposition that there were a nature from him propagated I deny therefore the Antecedent on supposition that God would let the course of humane generation go on according to the newly established Law of nature It was not only to his own person that Adam deserved this punishment Or thus I may deny the Consequence Though Adam deserved punishment only to his person yet it being to his whole person and our persons being then seminally in his and so after existing from his it follows that what he deserved to his person is propagated to those to whom that person propagates a being seeing it is of himself and out of himself that we proceed and not by a meer efficient causality as in creation or fabrication but he affordeth us our matter 10. It 's further objected Either that sin had but one adequate guilt which was to be divided among all Adam's posterity or as many guilts as men If the first then it is but a little of that sin that is imputed or of the punishment that is due to each of us singularly If the later then one sin should not have one guilt nor one adequate punishment but innumerable Answ The fundamentum is sin and that is one so the guilt is one fundamentaliter subjective primario but more than one fundamentaliter subjective per derivationem on supposition that according to the course of nature the one first guilty subject procreate