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
Hoc vero absurdum videtur eum justitia Dei pugnans Respon Non foret absurdum etiamsi Deus posteriores magis desereret ac puniret nam quanto plura peccata a genere humano cumulantur tanto magis ira Dei accenditur exasperatur poena juxta illud Nondum completae sunt iniquitates Amorrhaeorum c. Vt veniat super vos omnis sanguis justus c. Sed minor negatur etsi enim Deus propter justitiam suam peccatum originis hoc est vitium naturae reatum in omnes posteros transire sinit tamen simul ex misericordia metas figit peccato ut non semper majorum peccata actualia imitentur luant posteri nec semper malorum parentum mali aut deteriores ac miseriores liberi existant Sect. 40. XI Mr. Gataker ' s words Mr. Poole thus translateth in his Synops Crit. in Exod. 20. p. 403. Punit Deus sapenumero liberos propter peccata Parentum ut constat exemplis sanctionibus S. Scripturae Vid. Exod. 4. 22 23. 12. 29. 34. 7. Num. 14. 18. 2 Sam. 12. 14. 1 Reg. 13. 33. 14. 1. 17. Rationes 1. Quod liberi sint res atque possessiones parentum 2. Liberi praeterea sunt partes sive membra parentum sunt quasi una persona cum Parentibus ut recte Althus Dicaeolog l. 1. Vid. Gen. 20. 7. 18. Mat. 15. 22. Quod ad loca in contraria prolata Deut. 24. Jer. 31. Ezek. 18. 1. Debent 〈◊〉 mortem Deo c. 2. Non sunt haec apud homines semper injusta c. where he instaneth in similitudes See his Sermon it self on 1 Kin. 14. 17. Sect. 41. XII If I thought it would be worth my own and the Readers trouble I would undertake to produce abundance more of Protestant Writers and let but Expositors on the second Commandment be examined by him that doubteth of it and he will be satisfied if he have store at hand I only now say of many in general that the ordinary saying of such Expositors is that temporal punishments and some spiritual are oft inflicted by God on children for their Fathers sins I will give you the sense of many in Deodate's words on Exod. 20. 5. Visiting that is I enquire after it and punish it Of the Fathers As concerning eternal judgment upon the soul every one dieth for his own iniquity Jer. 31. 30. but for the Fathers sins the children are often punished in body in goods and other things which they hold and derive from their Parents Num. 14. 33. 2 Sam. 12. 11. and 21. 5. 15. And besides God oftentimes curseth the generation of the wicked withdrawing his grace spirit from it whereby imitating their Parents wickedness they are punished in the same manner 1 Sam. 15. 2. Matth. 23. 32. 25. Sect. 42. Here note 1. that there can be no punishment temporal or eternal where there is no imputed guilt Therefore all those Divines who say that not only Parents in their children but children for their Parents sins have the least punishment do thereby assert a guilt 2. That there is no guilt of sin which deserveth not great yea perpetual punishment if not remitted 3. That privation of Grace and the spirit here mentioned is a most heavy punishment tending to that which is perpetual 4. That children are to derive from their Parents or from God by them greater mercies than goods health c. even Church-membership right to Baptism and so to pardon and the other saving benefits of the Covenant as being holy Therefore by the same reason as health goods c. may be denied them because they are derived from Parents as Deodate speaks Baptism and its benefits may be denied them 5. And hath not the universal Church given us their judgment of the case who have in all ages judged that Baptism is to be denied to the children of Heathens and Infidels unless other mens owning them make them no longer theirs At least I may say if as many be of my judgment concerning our guilt of Parents sins as hold that Baptism and its fruits are to be denied to such children of Infidels the number will be so great and honourable that I would wish this worthy Dr. no more to make them seem as none And as I have before shewed not to be baptized is to them a penalty and that not only in the judgment of Papists who shut such out of Heaven but of the ancient Doctors who took Baptism to be our solemn investiture in a state of life and the seal of pardon and right to salvation as Gataker against Davenant de Bapt. hath proved by citing a multitude of their testimonies as an useful Index to save Readers much labour on that point And I have elsewhere proved at large that the Scripture mentioneth no Baptisme of Christ's Institution which was not for the remission of sin If any say that this is no new penalty but a leaving them under the old and that it is not for the Parents unbelief but the Parents only do omit their duty needful to the childs liberation I again answer that had there been no Saviour Covenant Means or Hope it had indeed been no penalty because no privation but a negation And had not the child 's right and deliverance been laid on the Parents Faith and Consent as a Condition they had but negatively left them under the penalty of Adam's sin and their corruption with the guilt next to be mentioned But remember that poena damni the loss of Heaven is vere poena and so is the loss of Pardon and Grace not to an uncapable but to a capable subject And that sins of omission are truly sins And that as a Father murders his child if he feed him not so he doth by omission do much to damn him if he do not believingly dedicate him to Christ for I speak not of unavoidable want of Baptism which Austin himself thought not to be damning however mistaken herein by many A mans own not-believing is nothing but it is such a nothing as is punished with a non-salvation which is another nothing yea that and other omissions with positive damnation and the pain of sense 6. But further note that this great instance sheweth that it is not only the sins of Parents before Generation and in it but also after the child's birth while the child is void of the use of reason and will for himself that the child may be punished by and for with this penal non-liberation Much more evident then is it that this with his additional pravity and bodily distempers all together are a penalty for the Parents former unbelief and other sins with this omission 7. And again I say that if the very guilt and corruption derived from Adam had not been my next Parents first it had never been mine no more than my nature For I had it not immediately from Adam but from
many more Scriptures Arg. 20. From all the examples of God's actual execution of Justice on children for the sins of neerer Parents 1. For that of Cain's I mentioned it before out of Matth. 23. And the Text shews that his seed suffered for his sake and not only for Adam's when there was such a difference made between Seth's and his that his seed are called the children of men and so far excommunicated that the sons of God were not to joyn with them in Marriage 2. The infants of the whole World were drowned in the floud not only because of Adam's sin but because their Fathers were grown so wicked And it seems by Peter 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. that they are part of the spirits in Prison When in the mean time Noah's whole Family even wicked Cham are saved for his sake 3. When Sodom is burnt all the infants perish And it seems by Jude 7. that they suffer the vengeance of eternal fire and the reason is because they gave themselves over to fornication and strange flesh Ibid. 4. God destroyed all the first born of Egypt for the Princes and Parents sin 5. Moses commandeth to kill every male of the Midianites among the little ones even after they had given them quarter and brought them home Numb 31. 17. 6. So did they and more to the subjects of Sihon Deut. 2. 34. They utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones of every City and left none to remain 7. So did they by Og the King of Bashan and his subjects Deut. 3. 6. besides the rest of the inhabitants whom they drove out 8. The like God denounceth against themselves for their rebellion Deut 32. 25. 9. The like is executed on Achan's Family Judg. 7. 24 25. which indeed goes beyond the case in hand 10. God commandeth Saul to slay both man woman infants and suckling of 〈◊〉 Amalekites 1 Sam. 15. 3. 11. God killeth the child begotten by David in Adultery for his sin 12. He threatens out of his own loins to raise up evil against David for that sin and other evils 13. He bringeth a curse on Eli's house after him for his and his sons sins 14. He saith for Solomon's sin he will afflict the seed of David 1 Kin. 11. 39. and so rendeth from him the ten tribes 15. He cutteth off and bringeth evil on Ahab's posterity for his sake 1 Kin. 21. 21. 15. He rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of the enemy for their Parents sin 2 Kings 17. 20. 16. Manasseh's sin God would not pardon to his posterity when he was dead and pardoned himself 2 Kin. 24. 3 4. 17. Ezek. 9. 6. He gives the like command Slay utterly old and young both maids and little children 18. The children of Babylon Shemaiah and others are mentioned before 19. I will mention but two more which shall be very remarkable The first is 2 Sam. 21. where the plague of famine is inflicted for Saul's sin and healed by the sacrificing of seven of his posterity 20. The last is the sad example of the Jews for killing Christ who being acquainted it seems with this doctrine that I maintain did say to Pilate His blood be on us and on our children and so it hath been and is to this day to the terror of all the Churches who therein may behold the severity of the Lord. So much cursorily for the proof of the Assertion In the next place we must answer some more of the chief objections besides what are already answered on the by And first I will answer those that make equally against the imputation of Adam's or our neerer Parents sin And because learned and judicious Placaeus hath said more to the matter in Thes Salmuriens Vol. 1. de statu hom lapsi ante Grat. pag. 206 207. Thes 12 13 14 c. than any that I know of I shall consider of his reasons as they are brought against the imputation of Adam's actual sin to his posterity and consequently make against our participation in the guilt of our neerer Parents actual sins 1. He saith it is not agreeable to that of Ezek. The Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father for we should bear the iniquity of Adam Answ 1. This speaks of a Son that disowneth his Fathers iniquity and hateth it and goeth not in the same way as is plain Ezek. 18. 5 6. 14 to 17. and of no other such shall not die for Parents sins 2. But this is no proof that he never deserved death for them but only that through gracious indulgence it shall not be inflicted So that this is a passage of Grace and not of pure Justice according to the meer law of works Obj. God speaks it to prove his Righteousness and not his Grace ver 29. Answ It is his ordinate Righteousness according to the promise of Grace which he must fulfil and not according to the meer law of works or nature which he vindicateth It is his just and equal dealings with men compared one to another supposing that they stand all upon terms of Grace 3. And this is yet more plain in that the very same promise on the same ground is made to them that repent and turn from their evil ways ver 21 22. Certainly the promise of pardon of sin is a promise of Grace and not an effect of the pure law of nature or works So that the reason here why that Son who himself doth that which is lawful and right shall not die for the Fathers sin is the same as why a repenting sinner shall not die for his sin ver 21 22. which can be no other than pardoning Grace which is so far from proving that there was no precedent guilt that it undoubtedly proves that there was for where there is no guilt there can be no pardon This answer shall serve also to those that confess the imputation of Adam's sin and yet from hence argue against the imputation of other Parents sins To which I shall add as to them that this Text is no more against one than the other go if it be not against the former it is not against the later Let them shew any intimated difference 2. Saith Placaeus It agreeth not with right reason For 1. If Adam's sin be imputed then his obedience ought to be imputed if he had continued innocent Answ The word imputation as ambiguous I purposely avoid unless where I may explain it but not the sense before explained I grant that to be true which he supposeth absurd But I say withal that yet Adam's imputed righteousness alone would have saved none that had had the least personal unrighteousness of his own Because bonum est ex causis integris we should have been innocent as we came into the World but yet the next sin of our own would have spoiled that innocency 2. Further I shewed before that there is not the same reason for conveying