shall no flesh be justified in his sight Rom. 4. proveth that even to Abraham and his seed justification was by remission of sin through faith in Christ and not by the Law or their own innocency And if it was so with Abraham's seed it is so still with our seed Arg. 9. Rom. 3. 23. 9 10 c. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation c. go infants have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and must be justified by this propitiation for sin Ver. 9. We have before proved that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin Ver. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God If men will groundlesly say that all these universals are to be limited to the adult they do but say they will believe what they list and words shall signifie what they will Obj. The Text speaks of actors in sin Answ True because it speaks of all the World among whom the adult actors were the principal part Obj. The word All is to be taken limitedly in many other Texts Answ 1. What of that shall we go deny its properest signification without a proved necessity and shall words be taken improperly by us at our pleasure because they are so sometimes where we may prove it 2. Will you allow this plea to them that use it against the texts that speak for Christ's dying for all when yet they have as fair pretence 3. The scope of the Apostle and the oft repeated universals plainly shew that it is the guilt and condemnation on one side and the justification on the other side of all simply that are condemned or justified even of all the World that he speaks of And he lays the strength of his Argument upon the universality for if any might have pleaded not-guilty before God and justified by the Law or their Innocency it had spoil'd the Apostle's argument So many plain Scriptures are not to be forced Arg. 10. If infants without a Redeemer should have been all shut out of Heaven and denied everlasting happiness then are they guilty of original sin But the Antecedent is true go so is the Consequent The minor is granted by those that do oppose us If it were not it 's easily proved 1. From all those Scriptures that appropriate salvation to the Church and to the members of Christ and to such as have it by his purchase and procurement who hath the keys of the Kingdom 2. From those Scriptures that tell us that if any have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that except a man be regenerate and new Born he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with many the like 3. From the incapacity of an unholy soul to see and love God and so to be happy it being a contradiction And God hath given us no ground to believe that he will sanctify all infants after death and that without any satisfaction for their sin by the death of Christ The consequence of the major proposition is proved thus Infants having souls made capable of immortality either shall live immortally or not If not that privation of everlasting life is an evil so great that any rational man would choose a perpetual tolerable punishment to escape it and God would not thus use so many subjects of his Kingdom to whom he hath undertaken to be a King and judge them righteously and all without any measure of sin in them And I find not yet that the adversaries assert this If they do they make infants to be but meer bruits of which anon If they live an immortal life and rise with others then either in Heaven or out of Heaven in happiness or not If not in happiness which is before proved and by them granted then it must be in misery 1. Because the very privation of that happiness is half hell and more 2. Because there is no middle state to a living rational creature they will have feeling and knowledge and go they shall feel good or evil to them and they cannot but know that they are deprived of Heaven and Happiness which knowledge must cause a positive grief And thus God doth afflict them by the greatest privation and some positive pain which Reason or Scripture or his relation of a righteous King and Judge will not suffer us to think that he doth without any sin of theirs For shall not the Judge of all the World do righteously Will he destroy the righteous with the wicked far be it from him Gen. 18. 23 24 25. Had all the infants of the old World of Sodom of Amalek of Midian been wholly free from participating in sin they had not been destroyed by a righteous Judge Arg. 11. If infants are under God's displeasure or deprived of his acceptance and complacency then are they guilty of original sin but the antecedent is true go so is the consequent If they were in the favour of God they would be saved for all the subjects of his Kingdom have the blessings and rewards of loyal subjects that are in favour with him but without Christ and pardon through his blood they would not be saved go c. If they were not under his displeasure he would not deny them his sanctifying grace and heavenly inheritance which they are capable of and which is the portion of his faithful ones But these he doth deny to some and would deny to more or all if it were not for their pardon and reconciliation through Christ Nor would he torment them with pain as he doth many in this life and after kill them and then shut them out of Heaven if he were well pleased with them The consequence is proved in that nothing but sin can make God displeased with a rational creature Only moral evil can deprive them of his favour Were original corruption but malum physicum such a natural evil as blindness lameness sickness madness c. God would not withdraw his favour for it Man hateth a serpent or a toad that have no sin because their natures are contrary to ours but no meer physical evil is evil to God or contrary to his nature and go none such is hated by him A toad is no more contrary or odious to God than a lark go for such evil infants could not fall under his displeasure He loves the sick the lame the leprous as well as the most sound Arg. 12. Infants have a nature derived from their Parents who were corrupt and guilty go they cannot be uncorrupt and innocent The antecedent is undeniable The reason of the consequence is because the cause can produce no effect that 's better than it self What the effect receiveth is from its cause and the cause cannot give that
sin go c. The major is proved 1. In that they have immortal souls and virtually rational 2. They are under many promises and threats that are mentioned in the Scripture 3. They are disciples of Christ and members of his Church The minor is plain 1. In that they make infants uncapable of any moral evil eo nomine because they have no actual volition or choice 2. And thereby they conclude them uncapable of moral good 3. And thereby they conclude them uncapable of judgment 4. And of any rewards 5. And of any punishments 6. And they say they are under no law or obligation 7. And go they can be no subjects of Christ's Kingdom or members of his Church Only God may do with them what he will and so he may with bruits Arg. 16. The infants of the unbelieving Gentiles were sinners and children of wrath go infants are capable of sin and some at least are sinners c. The antecedent is proved from Gal. 2. 15. We Jews by nature or birth and not sinners of the Gentiles i. e. by nature 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your children unclean but now are they holy The Anabaptists make this to speak but of legitimation The Papists by being unclean think nothing is meant but being not baptizable and to be holy they think is but to be baptizable and and that a posteriore because it is presumed that such infants will be religiously educated but Christ hath instituted no Baptism but what is for remission of sin and he doth not actually remit sin to some more than to others upon a presumption of the Church that they will hereafter be educated as Christians There is some holiness mentioned by the Apostle which is the reason why those infants more than others are to be admitted to Baptism which supposeth and signifieth it and that cannot be only a thing future and uncertain Divines commonly call it among Protestants a federal holiness and that this supposeth infants capable of moral good and evil I have shewed on this Text in my Treatise of Infants Baptism Eph. 2. 3. And were by nature the children of wrath even as others Forasmuch as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth nature birth or natural disposition properly and signifieth custom only by a rare and improper acception go it is not here to be interpreted by custom without such cogent evidence as none hath yet given us Those that attempt a collecting of testimonies for this improper use sometimes do give us many that make against them There is no necessity that will warrant our reception of such a tropical and unusual sense Job 11. 12. For vain man would be wise though man be born as a wild asses colt that is of a rude sottish unruly disposition Ezek. 16. 2 3 4. Son of man cause Jerusalem to know her abominations and say Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem Thy Birth and thy Nativity is of the Land of Canaan thy Father was an Amorite and thy Mother an Hittite and as for thy Nativity in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut neither wast thou washed c. This allegory sheweth that part of Jerusalem ' s abhomination was natural from the birth and nothing but sin is abhomination before God Job 25. How then can man be justified with God or how can he be clean that is born of a woman 15. 14. What is man that he should be clean and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous The illustration that is fetch'd from the natural weakness and impurity of the Heavens the Moon the Stars doth not contradict the exposition of the former words as of moral impurity for the impurity is according to the subject and natural impurity is not unrighteousness Arg. 17. From the necessity of regeneration Joh. 3. 3 5 6. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit If there be a necessity of a new birth to make us spiritual the first birth bringing forth but flesh before we can enter into the Kingdom of God then by the first birth we are born in sin But the antecedent is certain go so is the consequent The minor is plain in the Text 1. That flesh begets not spirit but flesh 2. That regeneration is therefore of absolute necessity At present I will suppose that by flesh here is not meant sin that the adversary may not think I beg any thing of him The consequence of the major hath this double proof 1. Because flesh without spirit in a rational creature is sinful or morally corrupt for being deprived of the spirit it is deprived of moral good 2. Because nothing but sin can keep a rational creature and subject of God out of Heaven for to be kept out of Heaven is one half at least of the damned's misery and to live and know that loss as immortal souls must do will produce also positive punishment Arg. 18. That doctrine is untrue which maketh God the Author of sin but so doth the denial of Original sin go it is untrue The major will be granted The minor I prove The doctrine which feigneth that innocent nature is under such a moral impossibility of not sinning as that no one person in all the World that hath the use of reason shall escape it doth feign God to be the Author of sin But so doth their doctrine that deny original sin go it feigneth God to be the Author of sin Or The doctrine which feigneth that innocent nature doth sin for want of necessary grace to escape it doth make God the Author of sin But so doth the denial of original sin go c. For the proof of the major of both Arguments consider 1. That the adversaries suppose nature in infants to be innocent 2. That it is granted by them that de facto all men that have the use of reason are sinners except Jesus Christ the Papists except also the Virgin Mary If they denied this it 's easily proved 1. By the common experience of the World as to the generality 2. By plain Scripture 1 Joh. 1. 8. 10. If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us If we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us Jam. 3. 2. For in many things we offend all Eccl. 7. 20. For there is not a just man on earth that doth good and sinneth not And that there is a moral impossibility to escape sin appeareth 1. By the universality of the event that which no man in all the World in any age attaineth to notwithstanding all the helps vouchsafed is morally impossible 2. And the Scripture assertion proveth it in that it alloweth us to conclude it of all that we know not and of those that are yet unborn And that the World sinneth for
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
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