we our selves doe it or else give occasion for others to quarrel at them For that all have sinned This clause thus translated was greedily snatch'd at of old to extenuate and excuse the severity of Deaths universal passing and not only so but to alter and divert the cause and guilt from the Original Sin to the Actual For this cause the Antients did either reject this Translation or did not so wel accept it But I am to speak of this our Paraphrast whose words by reason of this Translation are imposing on the Apostle if he means eternal Death he must not mean that it came for Adams sin but in as much as all men have sinned that is upon all those upon whom eternal death did come it came because they also have sinned and again in passing on us For that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams Sin pas'd upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all but yet death descended also upon Adam's posterity for their own Sins for since all did Sin all should die His also once and again seems to admit of original sin for her share in this reckoning but his in asmuch quite thrusts it out brings in actual sin in its stead Actual sin I say is obtruded and Original sin excluded at least for propriety for guilt for imputation for likeness for equality Yet I shall not therefore reject this Translation because I see our Church hath accepted it and shall hope to make it stand good in this sense For that all have sinned that is sinned Originally although not Actually sinned naturally in Adams Sin although as yet not personally or in their own and am confident he is not ignorant I can find Abettors for this exposition amongst the reformed and Orthodox Expositors far before him But Sir if you will be pleased to look upon the Margin which I suppose he winked at know it is pointed at by our Church as a note of equal indifferency and authority and there you find in whom all have sinned this speaks plainly of sinning not actually in our selves but originally in Adam and this Translation is every whit as much and rather more congruous to the Original Text for my part I rather embrace this latter Translation with most Translaters or Interpreters old or late And with them conceive it to be the safer as not giving such way to the Errors of the Pelagians old or new Nay I hold it to be the sounder and more consonant to the very Letter for why should {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} be translated so flatly in the Neuter Gender when 't is found so Emphatically in the Masculine being it may with so close and so apt Concotd be referred to the One Man spoken of before for construe it in the Masculine and the Relative fairly agrees with the proximate and eminent Antecedent but take it in the Neuter and then the Relative is without any Antecedent at all or else must be turned into some obscurer and less significant part of speech Erasmus who labours like a Critick to draw it this other way would not allow of St. Augustines referring it to Sin because of the different gender though he confesses it to be the same in sense to say in which Man or in which Sin As for Erasmus whom all have occasion to honour from the Cradle to the Crown of learning him this Author recommends to us more precisely to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best Expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediate Successors hath brought forth as for the learned Grotius whom he reckons with him I only say thus much As he was a most eminent Adversary to the Socinian so he was sometimes a not approved Advocate of the Arminian both which are reproved for their opinions about Original sin But on Gods name let him add all he can to Erasmus yet I would not have him detract any thing from St. Augustin which thing was sometime charged upon Erasmus himself both are to be mentioned with honour as the Worthies of their Ages And therefore all he hath said had it been more should have past for me without exception had he spoken it at another time and upon another place For upon on this place he cannot but know That Erasmus hath not only been suspected but taxed even by learned men of his own time and religion for more than I now think fit to express only as to the clause nay and whole verse in hand Erasmus is much contending for a Tropologie and peradventure hence it was that he hinted his Metonymie But for all his Rhetorick he turns Grammarian and plaies the Critick betwixt {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and will hardly be perswaded of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} for {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Dative Case yet at length acknowledges Because the use of Greek Prepositions are so various I dare not affirm that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is no where joyned with a Dative Case where one thing is declared to be in another like as the Tree is in the seed A most apt similitude to illustrate our being in Adam and our sinning in him too Were it not for this his confession places of such construction were easie to be produced but I spare them as likewise his propter unum his pervasit his quatenus peccavimus which also might be of a facile connivence were it not in case of dangerous consequence and contention besides my task is to pursue not his but this Authors paraphrase Verse 13. For until the Law Sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no Law FOr until the Law Sin was in the world That is from the beginning of the world all that time which went before until that very period wherein the Law was externally promulgated Sin was nevertheless even all that while in the world For the Apostle so speaks now with intent to occur to a certain objection an Objection not so much of mens Mervail or Scruple but rather of their Petulancy and Cavillation an objection that indeed hath been always but too much inculcated by the Adversaries of Original Sin Thus Where there is no Law there is no transgression But there is no Law given against Original Sin Ergo This is it which the Apostle here prevents by saying Sin was in the world during all that space of time which went before the giving or promulging of the Law of Moses notwithstanding it was not a Sin without a Law but so it was by vertue of the Law of Nature the rule of original righteousness the dictates of right reason the eternal moral Law the Law written in Mens hearts before it was written in Tables of stone For Original sin was not so much forbidden convinced condemned by
so as that it is confined to a temporal death If this be not the summary drift let the whole book speak but if this make to the Title now give me leave to speak How invective is this Vindicator of the Divine Attributes against the Sublapsarians and yet this I 'll say for them they doe not they dare not include any under the severe Decree of the Divine Justice till they have considered all as born under the lapse and guilt and defection and infection of Original sin Whereas he himself will not have Original sin so much as properly so called neither will he have any to be so considered undeâ— the lapse as really under the guilt or fault yet notwithstanding he will have the Divine Imputation or Decree to descend even upon all for matter of Temporal infliction Now judge whether of these two Sentences or Executions can more prejudice or impeach the Divine attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness c. viz. That of Gods imputing the whole and utter punishment unto some together with the real imputation of the sin or that of Gods imputing but part of the punishment even unto All and that without any real imputaon of the sin at all Certainly the Divine Justice is made to labour more under this charge for punishing all though but Temporally where he takes none to be faulty than it can under that for punishing but some although eternally where it finds all guilty Thus forcing at his own aim and yet forgetting the mark prefixed he miserably impinges upon the same Rock himself which he would insimulate others for to dash upon Would he verily and indeed have vindicated the glory of the Divine attributes in the question of Original sin he should not have proposed to do it only against the Presbyterian way of understanding it who had they no more disturbed the wholsom Discipline of the Church of England than they have of late directly publiquely and with one consent opposed her in her sound Doctrine she had never been thus widowed to such disorder and distress but might have sat still a Queen of Reformed Churches flourishing in her Peace and Truth Neither will they all yield that their way of understanding it should ever be pointed out for a way a part or singular from the Church of England and other Reformed Churches but he should rather have taken such a kind of Vindication in hand against the Pelagian the Manichaean the Samosatenean the Socinian the Pontifician the Pighian the Flaccian the Arminian the Supralapsarian yea the Judaical the Philosophical the Scholastical the Synergistical and the Anabaptistical way of understanding it all which Hereticks and Sectaries have here would a man goe about to make an exact Catalogue or Computation in more than sixteen times sixteen famous that is infamous questions opinions errors trench'd too palpably and grosly upon the glory of the Divine attributes indeed As be pleased to take here a taste What but their own way of understanding it caused the Jews to run into some error about Orignal sin as that some are born in sin and others not again that some are wholly so born and others but in part else how is it they say Thou wast altogether born in sin Ioh. 9. 34. objecting this scornfully to another in an Exemption of and difference to themselves and again That a Typical a legal or an external Covenant was sufficient to free them from it without the truth of Christ and his Gospel of Grace otherwise why said they within themselves We have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3. 9. and boasted before others We be Abrahams seed we be not born of Fornication Ioh. 8. 33 41. and why doth Christ in convincing them bring them to the Original of sin Ye are of your Father the Devil and the lusts of your Father ye will doe for he was a Murtherer from the beginning c. v. 44. if Original sin was not here intended What but their way of understanding it induced the Heathen Philosophers some to extol Nature as a noble Mother and simply vertuous some to depress her as an obscure step-dame and absolutely vitious Some to lament at the immerited evils of birth some to laugh that it should be thought a man could be born with any vice or crime about him for this was part of that which unto the Greeks seemed foolishness 1 Corinth 1. 23. That one should be saved by another mans merits that one should be just with another mans righteousness that one should suffer and satisfie for another mans offences and that one should be accounted wicked for another mans sins And in very deed the Greeks seeking after wisdom or men curiously Philosophizing and labouring in the Objections and answers of natural reason hath been the main thing that hath invented and maintained all the opinions and errors about Original sin Neither in truth is this natural reasoning of men any other than every mans own way of understanding it But let us goe on to take further notice of what notorious errors or heresies rather that have been not only broached but stifly maintained thereby scilicet that Original sin name and thing is nothing That no sin from Adam passes upon Men either at their conception or at their birth neither so much as imputed to posterity that Adams sin hurt none but himself and that Infants are born in the same state Adam was in before his praevarication That no man is lyable to damnation because of Adams sin That Adams sin passes no other way upon his Posterity but by example or imitation only That Original sin is not remitted to Infants by Baptism because there is no such thing in them so the Pelagians and Coelestians That sins both Original and actual were created by an evil Principle that is an evil God That no sin is caused by Free will but by the evil Principle aforesaid That sin is the very nature and substance of Man That some were so born in sin that Christ could not save them so the Manichees That Original sin is in no sort to be ascribed unto Man but either to God or else to the Devil so the Hermogenians and Valentinians That Original sin is the least of all sins That it is in the Body and not in the Soul or that it is in the inferiour faculties of the Soul only and not in the superiour That Original sin is called sin equivocally abusively figuratively or by a Metonymie either as the Cause of sin or as caused by sin That after Baptism it is no real viciosity but only a penalty That the whole and all of it is not only not imputed and remitted but quite taken away and blotted out by Baptism That Concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That there is no Law against the loss of Original righteousness That notwithstanding the worst of Original sin there will remain in us much both moral civil pious and Spiritual good That it is only a guilt binding over to
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
this case is a thing that both he and we all are bound to understand and seriously beleeve and not only that but Gods ordination and dispensation to such an end as the manifestation of his honour and glory But why such playing with a thing so sacred As here 's nothing to provoke his spleen to indignation from an horrible decree of absolute necessitating and damning so neither can I see any thing that should move it to laughter or levity the Apostle himself defines what affection it is that should hence be raised We joy in God through our Lord Iesus Christ ver. 11. and well we may since the sufferance or entrance of Sin is here referred to the gracious purpose of Reconciling attoning and saving Is this the way of vindicating the glory of the Divine Attributes to make no more but a light jest at Christs honour in this kind still I say Wisdom is justified of all her Children Luk. 7. 34 39. this he himself spake when men imputed to him a carnal Dispensation with our actual Sins and so much may we say when any man will deprive him of that honour is due unto him from his spiritual dispensation in our Originals Neither let him say to us That the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak Propositions we will say so too and peradventure might say so more justly against him only we let him know right inferences are no imaginations neither are strong deductions weak propositions And if what I have drawn hence be not directly from the Text let him but be pleased to take the illative along with him and then inferr what he can otherwise or to the contrary I confess I would not in any wise have this illation thought redundant for that were to make the Scripture either impure and corrupt or or else idle and superfluous yet should I not have excepted at all if any following my Siriack Transletion had omitted it upon this consideration That it is a hard matter especially in a comparison betwixt Adam and Christ to define a cause or give a reason for Original Sins entrance into the world or descent upon posterity But then this should be observed withall if such a thing be hardly rendred it should not be rashly inquired into because our inquisitiveness in this case tends more to the dishonour than all our Resolution can to the honour of the Divine Attributes As by one Man Whom we may not amiss understand in an unity of name order person nature sex action and Type 1. Of name Adam which appellation comprehends also both the person the sex and the kind 2. Of Order sc. the first man Adam 1 Cor. 15. 45. and so the very Hebraism or Grecism of the cardinal for the ordinal would give it if need were 3. Of Person sc. in the individual in number singularly and precisely taken and so Original Sin properly derived from the prime and not from the proximate Parents or according to their pluralities 4. Of sex the male and not the female who though she was first in the transgression yet some will have him to be solely understood in this propagation But for my part I confesse I can see no cause for such an exception but that they may be understood one Flesh one in the Image one in the praevarication and so one in the Propagation 5. Of Nature as one not only in individuo but in specie one comprehending and representing the whole root and stock and seed and generation and nature and condition of Mankind so Adam is taken for the whole species of Men and the Beast singularly for the whole species of Beasts 6. Of Act namely one in the Dis-obedience or Offence For it was not the simple or meer nature that was the means of such a derivation but the offending and disobedient Nature by which causally and instrumentally this privation and depravatiou this stain and guilt descended upon all yea not only the Offence of one but one offence for it was his first Act that was imputed to us and none of the rest 7. Of Type for Adam is here said to be the Figure or Type of Christ under this notion of one as much as in any thing else he whole Comparison throughout Sin No great matter how many and various soever be the acceptions of Sin in the Scriptures since in this place it is defined by the Apostle to be Sin in the singular and not said plurally Sins as if he would precisely determine it of that one root of Sin distinct from those many following fruits Yea it may be thus rendred the Sin very Emphatically and is understood by almost all from antient to modern for no other but Original Sin simply so accepted as the only Sin which came by one Man singularly and entred into all the world universally whereas actual sins are by many men neither enter they into all the world in general but rather into these and those particulars therein yea it is Sin simply absolutely properly formally For as himself grants this Sin had its beginning by the disobedience of Adam and disobedience is a transgression of a Law and that 's the very formality of Sin and that law was the law of the Image or of perfect Nature Now see Sir I beseech you what is here but in the least shew whereby to collect this sin to be Metonymically so called or what kind of Metonymie would he have it is it a Metonymie of the cause put for the effect So it seems he would have it because it is the effect of one sin Surely that one sin was a proper and real cause how strange is it then That it should beget an effect like to it in no thing but in a Tropical or Tralatitious an equivocal and abusive name if by the cause for the effect be meant Sin but for the Punishment how contrary is that to St. Pauls express words Sin entred into the world and death by Sin so far is he from confounding them that in most express manner he distinguishes between them both in name and signification For should his words be made to signifie thus Death that is the punishment entered by Sin that is the punishment Death the punishment of the punishment I beseech you what sense were this yet we grant though it is not so to be argued from the word in this place Original Sin is both a Sin and a punishment too A sin from the humane injustice perverting a punishment from the Divine Justice deserting Or will he have it a Metonymie of the Effect put for the Cause for so his other words intimate because it is the cause of many sins and those many sins without doubt he means properly so called then seems it so much the more strange and almost prodigious that so many real effects should proceed from a poorly equivocal and transnominated cause Rhetoricians observe that such kind of Metonymies are usual in external causes
much as he neither do we look that our sin in him should by him be lessened to us but by Christ only both to him and to us all 2. Now for the Consequents of this Paraphrase THe consequent of this discourse he says must needs be this at least If it be consequent to his discourse so but it stands us in hand to examine whether it be consequent to the Apostles words but since he will needs impose them on us as Consequences he will not be angry if I take them up as Inconsequences For whether so or so I refer them Sir both to yours and every able and indifferent mans judgement Conseq. That it is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the eterternal bonds of Hell by Adam Inconsequ nothing is impossible with God nothing is impossible that is justly done and past we say not only the greatest part but the whole race of mankind was so left and yet all that aggravates it not to an impossibility For why should it be thought an impossibility That all by Adam should be left in the eternal bonds of Hell since all in Adam had a possibility to be brought to the eternal Throne of Heaven Conseq. For then quite contrary to the discourse of the Apostle there had been abundance of Sin but a scarcity of Grace and the excesse had been on the part of Adam not on the part of Christ Inconseq The abundance or excess which the Apostle here contends for is not with respect to numbers or to multitudes of persons on either part but in regard to Grace abounding Sin and Life excelling Death and Christs merits infinitely exceeding both Adams and our own deserts Conseq. So that the Presbyterian way is perfectly condemned by this discourse of the Apostle Inconseq Though he tell them never so often yet they will hardly beleeve him on his own word till he can convince them from the Apostles words perfectly and indeed Conseq. Nay and yet more particularly convince them when their way of understanding in this point is singular from the Church of England or other reformed Churches Suffrage the other mâ—re gentle way which affirms that we were sentenc'd in Adam to eternal death though the Execution is taken off by Christ is also no way countenanced by any thing in this Chapter Inconseq No these words death passed death reigned the judgement was to condemnation these I say countenance and confirm the sentence Again the Free gift came to justification of life they shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ these countenance and confirm the taking off the Execution were it not thus both for the sentence and for the Execution where then were all those excesses on Christs part what excesse were it to make those righteous that were not made Sinners before what excess were it to justifie those to eternal life that were never condemned to eternal death let him look to it either Christ must be preferred in these Acts and Excesses or else his Attributes are but impaired Conseq. That the judgement which came from Adams sin unto the condemnation of the world was nothing but temporal Death is here affirmed In conseq so far is it from being affirmed that upon right deduction it is more than once denied For it was Death entring by Sin and that was something more than temporal death It was Death reigning and that was something more than death temporal It was death opposed to the justification of life and that must be something more than temporal death It was death opposed to reigning in life and therefore must needs be more than temporal death Conseq. It is in no sence imaginable that the death which here St. Paul says passed upon all men and which reigned from Adam to Moses should be eternal Death Inconseq Will he allow no man a sensible imagination besides his own understanding or rather a sensible understanding besides his own imagination Death passed upon all men that is eternal death passed upon all men according to the justice of the sentence and their due desert There 's one sense That Death which reigned from Adam to Moses was eternal death for if you take the time of Deaths reigning to be betwixt them two terminally and exclusively then was it not so much as a tempotal death passing upon all men But death reigns not but from an eternal Law and in and to eternity There 's another sense yea Death reigned from Adam to Moses and so onward until Christ and would have reigned eternally over all men had not Christ taken it off There 's another sense Conseq. the Apostle speaks of that death which was threatned to Adam Inconseq rather of the death which was threatned to the world in Adam but take it as directed to Adams person dying thou shalt die Gen. 2. 17. The sacred idiom serves to note the continuity as well as the certainty of Death and that was an intimation of the eternity Conseq. The Apostle means such a Death which was afterwards threatned In Moses Law Inconseq well but who takes a temporal death only nay who takes not an eternal death chiefly to be threatned upon the breach of the Morral Law Conseq. and such a death which fell even upon the most righteous of Adams posterity Inconseq True it fell upon them in part not that the other part was not due unto them but that it was taken off by Christ Conseq. Upon the most righteous of Adam's posterity who did not sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression Inconseq Such righteous ones of all his posterity were never yet known Abel Seth and Methusala were certainly none such for they and their like even all the holy Patriarks were sinners as well by imitation as by propagation and sinned as well actually as originally To say that those holy men sin not after the similitude of Adams transgression in that they sinned less alas that 's but poor for so even wicked men are said not to sin after the similitude of one another Conseq. Because in proportion to the evil so was the imputation of the Sin it follows That Adam's sin is ours metonimycally and improperly Inconseq Here 's nothing at all which follows aright for even the first part of his argument is preposterous By evil he intends punishment and then the consequence is quite contrary because the sin was not imputed in proportion to the punishment but indeed the punishment was deputed in proportion to the Sin And therefore it must follow by reason of contraries That Adams sin was not tropically and tralatitiously but even litterally and properly ours But consider what he says in effect That God did measure the sin according to the punishment Now good Lord how can the Divine Attributes stand safe to such a saying for what Justice is that that regulates or proportions the sin by the punishment and not the punishment by the Sin In the imputation of God or men who makes the sin
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
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
is upon the Sons of Adam from the day that they goe out of their Mothers womb till the day that they return to the Mother of all things would not be so grievous or so unequal to their apprehensions But they would soon be convinc'd to lay their hands upon their mouths yea would be content to say every man for himself This is my Yoak the image of the earthy and I will bear it I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him which is never to be brought to passe if we once go about to unyoak our selves of the Sin But whether we will do so or no God will be true when all men are found Lyers his ways will be proved equal when our ways are reproved for unequal and wisdom will be justified and cleared when she is judged though no flesh living can be justified in her sight The very punishment and infliction from God is sufficient to argue the sin and guilt in us For Death reigned by one not only by one man in the Masculine as he spake immediately before but by one in the Neuter one Sin for death could never so have reigned by the one Man had it not been by the one sin Yet see how he would labour to bring the Original punishment on our heads that will not admit us to bring the Original Sin so much as upon our Shoulders For so he supposes it If the sin of Adam alone could bring death upon the world who by imitation of his transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God though not after the similitude of Adams transgression How says he no Sin but in imitation no punishment but for imitation he knows full well whose exploded heresie that was and therefore shall do very well to renounce both name and thing at once But how agree his own words to themselves sinning by imitation and yet not after the similitude of Adams transgression which cannot genuinely no nor conveniently be interpreted but of sinning actually and by imitation yea let it be understood of sinning less than he did yet so it is by imitation Again Sinning on the stock of their own natural choice and yet not sinning after the similitude of Adams transgression Why how sinned Adam but out of the stock of his own natural choice And how sinned we in him but out of the stock of his natural choice for indeed he was our natural stock and we were the branches thereof And it was he that received the whole stock of Natures choice liberty Free will and consent for himself and likewise for us all and out of this stock of natural choice and liberty it was that we sinned not only by him but in him and with him wherefore I heartily wish him to be wary how he exempts sinning after the similitude of Adams transgression and sinning on the stock of our own natural choice each from other lest he impâ—ir that stock and overthrow that Rock of liberty and Free will which against both Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians he laboured ere while so earnestly to establish and so prove to strike upon them and himself and the Divine Attributes all at once But to remedy all this here it is not only by one Man who had his personal choice but by one sin wherein was our natural choice and therefore let us go on to see what the Apostle inferrs and preferrs in such a case How much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse shall reign in life by one Iosus Christ sc. Though Death reigned much both by one man and by one sin yet by one Christ they shall reign much more But then they must be duely qualified for it is They which receive and that argues no capacity no ability in them notwithstanding the blemish of Orginal sin for thereby they were under Death's reign which was spiritual and not corporal only and held under the power and utter slavery of Sin as well as Death rather it convinces them of their privation and impotence as not having but as they receive yet notwithstanding such emptiness and unaptness being prepared and embled by Christs abundance they must receive that is rightly apply Grace sc. the grace of justification by Faith and likewise the Gift of Righteousness sc. the sanctification of the Spirit to holy walking And both these they shall have both in their kinds and measures sc. abundance namely for sufficiency but not to supererogation And so they shall reign in life sc. from Vassals under Sin and Death become Free-men nay Kings in life both of Grace and Glory And all this not of themselves nor for any worthiness of their own but by the sole merits and mediation of one Iesus Christ who is God all-sufficient and besides whom there is no Saviour All these Excellencies of Remedy put together serve but to set forth the destituteness and desperateness of the Disease Verse 18. Therefore as by the offence of one Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the Free gift came upon all men unto justification of life THerefore as by the offence of one man judgement came upon all men c. This 18 verse by the illative seems to me rather to refer to the 16 verse than to any of the rest and may thence more expresly and peculiarly be supplyed Howbeit the Comparison was there with more precise respect to the Things huâ— here to the persons Therefore then the illative is a reduplicate and concludes so much the stronger as by the offence of one man or by one offence whether the primordial Act of his person or the original stain of our Nature judgement of the Divine Decree so wise so just came upon all men all common men and born after the ordinary way of Nature not the blessed Virgin none but Christ himself excepted unto condemnation at least from his sentence and according to our desert even so by the righteousnesse of his person natures offices the Free gift of grace and salvation came upon all men sufficiently yea and effectually too upon all the faithfull For he is the Saviour of all men especially of those that beleeve unto justification of life sc. that life which only the justified or which by justification only all men attain unto And here I have only those words of his to except against The proportion and comparison lies in the mayn emanation of death from one and life from the other That certainly it does not if we look at the Comparison no further than as it lies in the present verse for here the main proportion and comparison is betwixt the offence of one and the righteousness of one both here and throughout the whole Comparison Sin and Grace the offence and the free-gift these are the main opposites as being the principal causes The other two Death and Life are but secondarily set opposite as being but the consequents