in his undertakings to be present with him and to direct him whereas his adversaries could not do so And indeed how can an Arminian or a Pelagian with any of those Naturists cordially pray for the grace of God to assist them while they write against grace and patronize free-will Let them sacrifice to their own nets to their own parts and abilities It 's from their will that grace is efficacious This arrogancy is like that of the Heathens whose saying was Ignavis opus est auxilio Dei It is only the sluggish that need the help of God Yea Tully argueth the case That we are not beholding to God for our vertue therefore saith he our ancestors have praised the gods for their success and outward advantages but never for their vertues Happily it is awe and reverence that men bear to the Christian Religion that keepeth them from such blasphemous expressions yet even in Christian Writers pleading for the power of nature instances might be given of proud and swelling expressions Thirdly It is good to observe That even in all those whose end avour hath been to advance the free-will of a man to what is truly good there hath appeared some guiltiness as it were in them therefore they have often changed if not their minds yet their words thus they have removed from the mountaines to the valleys The Pelagians did incrustate their opinions often and the Papists speak sometimes so plausibly that you would think Bellarmine and Calvin did imbrace each other Pelagius did at last come to use the word grace yea did anathematize such as should not hold the grace of God requisite to every good act by which crafty guiles he did deceive the Eastern Bishops and still in the serpents-skin do the Jesuites and Arminians appear They think it the greatest calumny that can be cast upon them to say they are against the grace of God hence they use the word of grace often as well as of free-will but all this ariseth from guilt they do use the word grace ad frangendam invidiam to decline envy to insinuate more into the hearts of credulous hearers so that men sacrilegiously advance the will of man ' make man to have the greatest praise in converting himself in saving himself and whereas Paul said Not I but the grace of God with me They will on the contrary affirm Not the grace of God but I yet for all this they would be thought to advance the grace of Christ but that is a true rule of Austins Gratia non est gratia ullo modo nisi sit gratuita omni modo Grace is not grace any way unless it be free and graâ—uitous every way Therefore the inconstancy the changes and shifts all such are put to who plead for this liberty of the will argue they are not in the Truth but like thieves do hate the light and change their garments often that they may not be discovered They are afraid of the Scripture and would more gladly have the controversie ended by Aristotle then by Paul so that this Pelagian error hath had Cain's curse as it were upon it a trembling lest every place of Scripture it does meet with should kill it Fourthly To maintain the slavery of the will to sinne and to deny any liberty to that which is holy and godly is a truth so unpleasing to flesh and blood doth so reproach as it 's thought mankind that it hath alwayes in the Church of God by some heretical persons or others been spoken against It hath been judged very scandalous and offensive as that which did lay the axe to the root of all Religion and holiness But yet experience hath taught us that none have expressed so much holiness in their lives as those who have had this truth of Christs grace incorporated into them and on the other side the Pelagian Doctrine hath left upon mens spirits like leaven à cornu tumorem a sowreness and bitterness as also a tumor and vaunting confidence in themselves So that if the denying of free-will and exalting the grace of God be so prophane an opinion in its genius and inclination as some calumniate it 's a miracle that from such a poisoned fountain such sweet streames should flow and from such thornes so pleasant grapes should grow But the reason of this offence to flesh and blood is the self-love and self-fullness that is in every man by nature spiritual pride and self-confidence do reign in all men by nature hence it is that though they be naked yet they are not ashamed of it which in Adam while innocent did come from his integrity but in corrupt man from his senslesness and stupidity No wonder then if this Doctrine of grace be not justified cordially and as it ought to be but by the sonnes of grace who have felt the power and efficacy of it upon their hearts who have experimentally found the grace of God freeing their will from all that bondage it was in to sinne and Sataen Fifthly From this it is that a gracious heart is required to study this point as well as a learned head Experience of regeneration of being made a new creature of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit will excellently direct in this controversie I wonder not to see a man though come out of Egypt loaden with Egyptian gold to make a molten-calf for a god and to worship it men of great learning and it may be of great external civility as they say of Pelagius if not humbled by the grace of God and throughlyu emptied of themselves how can they stoop and yeeld all up to Christ It was therefore Austin's wish That the Pelagians would turne their disputations into prayers for it is the heart as well as the head that is usefull in this point Though all Divinity be practical and practice is the end of knowledge yea in Scripture language Tantum scimus quantum operamur we are said to know no more then we do yet some truths have a more immediate influence into practice then others whereas some opinions do stand in the Court as it were others enter into the holiest of holiest Now this truth about the grace of God and free-will is practice practice as I may say what some do of the ultimate dictate of the understanding This truth lieth in the vitals of Religion and therefore the experience of all the godly is justly brought after Scripture arguments to confirme this great truth Therefore humble your selves more commune with your own hearts be much in prayer and self-emptiness and you will quickly find the light of this truth shining into your hearts Come and tast Come and see what you hear with your eares pray that God would grant you an experimental knowledge of grace and then you will quickly confess not unto your own free-will but to the free grace of God all praise and glory doth belong Sixthly This truth therefore being so contrary to flesh and blood It
have no more proportion or sutablenesse with spiritual and supernatural objects then the eye hath with immaterial substances so that as the eye cannot see a spirit neither can material affections terminate upon immaterial objects But the Answer is That the affections being implanted in us as hand maids to the rational parts and subjected to them by an essential subordination therefore it is when those superiour parts of the soul do strongly imbrace any spiritual good the affections also by way of concomitancy are stirred up therein onely as it is with the will though that be made to follow the understanding and as some say doth necessarily yeeld to the ultimate and practical Dictate thereof yet the will doth need a peculiar sanctification of its own nature neither is the illumination of the mind all the grace the will wanteth So it is with these affections although they be appointed to follow the directions and commands of the mind and will yet they must be sanctified and enlivened by the peculiar grace of God else they move no more than a stone Now this necessity of enlivening and quickning grace upon the affections the godly are experimentally convinced of How often doe they complain they know Christ is the chiefest good they know eternal glory is an infinite treasure Oh but how barren are their hearts no affections no cordial stirrings of their soul when they think of these things Doe the children of God complain of any thing more than their want of affections in holy things They have them as hot as fire for the things of the world but are clods of earth in spiritual duties This maketh them cry so often with the Church Draw us and we will runne after thee This maketh them pray Arise O Southwind and blow O North upon the garden of my soul that the flowers thereof may send forth a sweet fragrancy Thus that saying is true Citò prevolat intellectus tardus sequitur affectus If therefore there were no other pollution upon the affections then their dulnesse and senslesnesse as to holy things This may make the godly go bowed down all their life time Their affections are green wood much fire and frequent blowing will hardly inflame them and hence it is that the godly are so well satisfied and do so thankfully acknowledge the goodnesse of God to them when they find their affections stirring in any holy thing Insomuch that they judge that duty not worth the name of a duty which is not an affectionate duty That prayer not worthy the name of prayer which is not an affectionate prayer But how dull and heavy are these till sanctified as to any holy object Yea such is the perverse contrariety that is now come upon the superiour and inferiour parts of the soul that when the more noble parts are intensively carried out to any object the inferiour are thereby debilitated and wholly weakned so that many times the more light the lesse heat the more intellectual and rational the lesse affectionate Now this is contrary to our primitive creation for then the more knowledge of heavenly things the more affections also to them did immediately succeed But now experience doth confirme That those men whose understandings are most deeply ingaged in finding out of truths their affections are at the same time like a barren wildernesse Hence you may often find a poor inconsiderable believer more affectionately transported in love to Christ and holy things than many a great and learned Scholar That as natural fools have a greater stomack to meat and can digest better than wise men whose animal spirits are much tired and wearied out So it is here the lesse disputative the lesse head-work a godly man hath many times he hath the better heart-work Oh then bewail this in thy self as a most degenerating thing from primitive rectitude when thou findest thy knowledge thy controversal Disputes dry up thy affections So that truth is indeed earnestly sought after but the goodnesse of it doth not draw out thy affections When David commended the word of God above the honey and the honey-comb it was evident he found much experimental sweetnesse of the power of it upon his affections SECT XIII The Affections being drawn out to holy Duties from corrupt Motives shews the Pollution of them THirdly Herein also is apparent the original pollution of our affections That when they are moved and stirred up in any holy duties yet it is not a spiritual motive that draweth them out but some corrupt or unlawfull respect Thus there is a world of guile and hypocrisie in our affections we think it is the love of God that affecteth us when it is love to our selves to our own glory to accomplish our own ends Thus in our sorrow we think it is for sinne that we grieve when it is because of temporal evil or some outward calamity Insomuch that this very consideration of the hypocrisie and deceitfulnesse of our affections may be like an Abysse or deep to swallow us up when the heart is said to be so desperately wicked and that none can know it but God by that is meant in a great part our affections none knoweth the depths of his love of his fear of his sorrow How often doth he blesse himself when he finds these things moving in him especially in holy duties Whereas alas it is not any consideration from God any heavenly respect moveth him but some earthly consideration or other You may observe this in Jehu what ardent and burning affections did he shew in the cause of God destroying Idolatry and executing the judgements of God upon his enemies But what moved his affections all this while It was not the glory of God but self-respects self-advancement Oh this is the treacherous deceitfulnesse of our affections we may find them very strong in preaching in publick prayer with others and the fire to them be onely vain-glory Yea our affections may be blown up with our own expressions and delight in them so that as it is a long while ere thou canst get thy affections up to any holy duty so it is as difficult to search out What is the cause of them Why they rise up Those in Mat. 7. 21. that would cry Lord Lord did by the ingemination of the word demonstrate lively affections yet they were such whom God would bid depart as not knowing of them Here therefore is the misery of man that as all the speculative knowledge in the world unlesse it be also accompained with an affectionate frame doth not at all commend us to God so all hot and strong affections do not presently suppose the truth of grace within Experience doth sadly confirm this that many who have had great affections and workings of heart in the profession of godlinesse have yet desperately apostatized and become at last a senslesse and as stupid about heavenly things as any prophane ones are The Jews are said for a while to rejoyce in Johns light Joh. 5. 35.
The word signifieth more then ordinary affections even such as to make them trepidate and leap for joy yet this was but for a season So Mat. 13. there are some hearers who yet had not root enough that did receive the Word with joy By these instances it is plain That our affections are full of deceit full of falshood we know not when to trust them It is hard to tell what it is that draweth them out even in our holy duties and if the godly though in some measure regenerated find the power of this deceit upon their affections certainly the natural man he is all over cosened his affections are altogether a lie to him he saith he loves God with all his heart he saith he is grieved for all his sins when all the while his affections are moved from other respects SECT XIV Also they are more zealously carried out to any false and erroneous way then to the Truths of God FOurthly Herein also is manifested the great pollution of our affections That they are more earnestly and zealously carried out to any false and erroneous way then to the truths of God Let a man be in an heretical way in a superstitious way in any deluded way of Religion and you will find such to be more affectionate in their way then the godly can be in a true way and the reason is because our affections have more sutablenesse with what is corrupt and false then with what is true and of God Observe all the false religions that are in the world may you not admire at the zeal at the pains they take for the propagation of their opinions how restlesse they are Which certainly may exceedingly shame the children of the truth that men should be more active for the Devil then they can be for God Our Saviour observed it of the Pharisees how they compassed sea and land to make proselytes And Paul speaking of the Jews Rom. 10 2. He beareth them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge The more affection in a wrong way the more dangerous it is It is good to be zealously affected saith the Apostle in a good thing Gal. 4 18. This he speaketh because the false apostles did appear with a great deal of affection none seemed to manifest such passionate bowels to people as they did but saith Paul they zealously affect you but not well It is not from spiritual and heavenly motives that they are thus affectionate towards you Well then this is sadly to be bewailed that our affections will vehemently runne like a torrent down any false or erroneous way whereas to that which is truth indeed we can hardly raise them up Wonder not then if you see the Papist in his superstitious way the erroneous person in his false way to be so full of affections and devotion in his perswasions for alas it is easie falling down the hill error and supersition is agreeable with the corrupt nature of man When we read what some Monks and Hermites have done in solitary places afflicting themselves macerating their bodies we may admire how their affections in that way could hold out so long but mans heart like the earth will bring forth nettles and weeds of it self but it cannot corn or flowers without diligent managing of it Let us then mourn for this evil that is come upon our affections look upon all the superstitious and false wayes in the world See with what greedinesse and vehemency they are carried out to them but as for thee whom God preserveth in the truth and keepeth in his wayes thou art quickly weary in well-doing Oh be afraid lest all the pains and diligence of man in false wayes do not rise up to condemn thee for thy slothfulnesse in Gods wayes SECT XV. They are for the most part inlets to all sinne in the Soul HErein are these motions of the soul greatly depraved In that they are inlets for the most part of all sinne into the soul They are the weakest part of the wall and therefore Satan doth commonly begin his batteries there this is as it were the thatcht part of the building and so any spark of lusts falling upon it doth immediately set the whole building on fire It is true the senses they are the out-works and porches as it were of the soul and therefore temptations begin there but then the affections are the second Court as it were so that for the most part the mind and the will are carried on to sinne because the affections are first corrupted these lye as Saul's men did all asleep while his enemies had the opportunity to take away not only his spear but his life Now it is good to know that the order and method of the souls motions to any outward objects in its first creation was very rational and commensurate to the true rule for then the understanding did first apprehend and take notice of the objects to be loved which it did consider without any ignorance or error upon this clear proposition of the object The will did readily receive and imbrace it and when this was all done then the affections were subsubsequent they immediately followed without any delay so that Adam had this perfect method in all his actions before his apostacy reason did begin and affections did end but what confusion and disorder is now brought upon us affections do now begin not the eies but the feet do lead the Devil and sinne get their first entrance into the soul by the affections so that as the Philosophers say in a natural way Quicquid est in intellectâ— prius fuit in sensu whatsoever is in the understanding was first in the sence so may we say morally Quicquid est in voluntate prius fuit in appetitu sensitivo whatsoever is in the will was in the affections and no wonder it is so now seeing that the Devil did bring sinne into the world by beseiging the affections at first and thereby corrupting the understanding for as Satan did first tempt Eve the weaker vessel and so beguiled Adam whereupon the woman is said to be first in the transgression so even in man he did first begin with the affectionate part the Eve as it were and by that did overcome the rational part which was like the Adam Eve then was tempted to sinne although she had no corrupt principles within her meerly because the bait laid for her was sutable to her sense and affections how much more then do affections like so many thieves open all the doors and let iniquity come in every where when reason and grace have no command over them Sit down then and well consider this particular That thy affections do first beatray thee Thy ruin doth begin in them and therefore whosoever would keep any sinne from taking the Castle of the soul he must watch over his affections he must be sure to put out every spark of their fire as it were Job made a
they are brought to believe they are brought out of the bondage of sinne only Justification and such Gospel-priveledges are actually bestowed upon none till they do beleive we have not time to proceed in the discovery of other waies and opinions of the learned to answer this doubt only thus much we have heard that may make us therefore to bewail original sinne that we are in such a dark ignorance that we do but grope about the propagation had Adam continued in integrity he would not have only communicated righteousness to his posterity but they would also have certainly known the manner how but now we are wholly miserable and know not exactly the manner how we know little about the soul so that the soul which only is knowing in man knoweth very little of it self of its nature of its original like the eie that seeth other things but not it self Let us then be more sollicitous about our going out of the world then how we came into it Be more desirous to come out of this pit then to stand wondring how thou didst fall into it dost thou not observe more ready to inquire curiously about the one then daily to pray about the other SECT V. HItherto the expedients thought upon to ease that great difficulty about the propagation of original sinne have appeared very improbable and in some respect very absurd like unwise Chyrurgians not healing but vexing the wound worse We shall now proceed to some more probable ones and dispatch them with convenient speed lest you should think these are such 〈◊〉 upon which no grapes can grow of more difficulty then usefulness although you shall find that even in this wilderness we may meet with Mâ—ona The truth discussed will not only be for doctrinal Information 〈◊〉 doctrinate Application The next therefore that I shall instance in is 〈…〉 of those who hold The soul is not by the immediate Creation of God but 〈◊〉 or multiplication and this they are so confident in That they 〈◊〉 Doctrine of original corruption cannot be maintained unless we affirme so Thus you heard Austin affirming That neither by reading praier or disputing could he find out how one could be defended without the other It is true Bellermine saith That the opinion of the traduction of the soul from the parents doth no way at all either advantage or incommodate the Doctrine of original sinne but that the difficulty will still be as great so also Arminius Thes pri de primo peccato maketh the dispute about the original of the soul in the matter of the propagation of this hereditary defilement unusefull and needless But certainly the clearing of the souls original is very influential into this point especially because we are forced to it by the adversaries of this truth for it seemeth very probable that Austin would readily have believed the immediate creation of every of every soul but that the dispute about original corruption was the remora for he regarded not any other Objection This opinion then That the soul cometh originally from the parents as well as the body hath had its grave and learned abettors Tertullian of old who wrote a book De animâ And as for Austin it is true he did not defend this opinion neither did he deny it he wrote four Books De origine animae against one Vincentius Victor who blamed Austin for his hesitancy in this point and in those Austin doth still persist in the same doubt and doth answer those Arguments which are usually brought out of the Scripture yet so as that he doth not determine against the souls Creation but desired stronger Arguments and therefore doth rebuke that young man for his bold presumption in determining that controversie so confidently Austin also in his tenth Book upon Genesis ad literam doth shew the same doubting mind within him as also in his Epistle to Hierom wholly about the original of the soul wherein he doth earnestly desire of Hierom that he would teach him and satisfie him in this point by strong and sure evidence likewise he maketh the original of the soâ—â— the subject of this Epistle to Optatus It appeareth that Austin did more incline to hold the Creation of the soul therefore he saith to Hierom That although none can by wishing make a thing to be true yet if it could he would by wishing have the Doctrine of the Creation of the soul to be the truth No wonder that Austin thus doubted seeing Hierom saith the greatest part of the western Doctors were for the traduction of the soul But the eastern the greek Fathers they did generally hold the immediate Creation of it In the latter daies of the Church since the Reformation there have also been eminent and able Divines asserting the traduction of the soul from the parents and thereby original sinne Vostius mentioneth Johnius and Marnixius The Lutheran Divines seem generally to be of this opinion as appeareth by Brechword and Meisner The latter whereof relateth of Luther that he should say He would never trouble the Church about any opinion about the original of the soul yet his private opinion was that it was not by Creation and they do pitch on this as holding it most convenient to remove all doubts although Meisner confesseth there are even unanswerable Objections if they do hold the generation of it from the parents But I must tell you that those who affirm the soul to be from the parents as well as the body differ amongst themselves for some say it is by eduction out of the matter that it is generated as the body Others they say by traduction that the soul is not corporally begotten but the parents soul doth multiply the infants soul even say they as you see one candle doth inlighten another In the confession of the Aethiopick Faith as Hornebeck summa Cont. de Gracis relateth it is affirmed Omnes sine ullâ hesitantiâ in hâc sententiâ versamur c. All of us are in this opinion without any hesitancy that all our souls come of Adam as well as our flesh and that we are all Adam's seed both in flesh and soul CHAP. XXIV That the Soul is neither by Eduction or Traduction but by Introduction or immediate Infusion proved by Texts of Scripture SECT I. BUt whatsoever learned men have thought therein we may say That it is against Scripture and true reason that the soul is either by Eduction or Traduction but by Introduction or immediate Infusion and that by God himself And I shall instance in some Texts of Scripture to which though they give exceptions yet I suppose the Truth stands immoveable neither do you think this work needless for it 's worth the while if there were no other use but to informe you against a dangerous sect that are called Mortalists who hold the soul is nothing but the temperament of the body and that it is mortal to which abominable opinion the Socinians also do strongly incline The first Text
further actings of original sinne in the mind and spirit of man And The second in order is That incapacity which is in every mans understanding about holy things Divine and supernatural things are no more received by him then a Beast doth apprehend the things of reason We have this fully affirmed 1 Cor. 2. 14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned you see there is no habitude or proportion between the understannding of a natural man and spiritual things no more then is between the bodily eie and a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one that doth excolere animam such as labour to adorne and perfect the soul with the most intellectual and moral indowments that are a Tully a Plato an Aristotle these if brought to Gospel-truth are not so much as noctuae ad solem Owles to the Sunne-beames To this purpose also Rom. 8. 7 we have not only this truth asserted but also aggravated where the carnal mind is said To be enmity against God and it is not subject to the Law of God neither can it be By which places of Scripture it is evident That the mind of man hath an utter incapacity as to any divine things Indeed there is a passive capacity as some express it and so the mind of man is susceptible of holy truth and such a capacity is not in a beast as that is not capable of sinne so neither of regeneration But then there is an active capacity when the soul by some ability and power of its own is able to move to these supernatural objects and thus the understanding of the most learned in the world cannot of it self receive it and therefore faith is said To be the gift of God so that we may justly abhorre the Arminians Probitas animi and Pia doxilitas which they make preparatory or main part to conversion Now there is a twofold receiving of divine Truths 1. Speculatively by a bare dogmatical assent and even thus none by nature can receive the Truths of God for the Pharisees though they heard Christ preached and saw the miracles he did yet they did not believe with so much as a dogmatical faith 2. There is a practical and experimental receiving of holy Truths in the power of them which is here called the knowing of Truths as they are in Jesus and this much less are we able to receive To the former is required the common grace of God To this a more special one Wonder not then if you see men even the most learned naturally so brutish so ignorant about divine things That they have no more understanding and apprehension about heavenly things Oh bewail original corruption which maketh thee so unteachable so untractable Why doth not every Scripture-truth every powerfull Sermon have its full and powerfull operation upon thee but because it doth not me et with a preparedand fitted subject Thirdly Adam's actual sinne which is our original imputed one was partly this They desired to be as gods to know good and evil which hath left its impression upon all Like the Bethshemite we desire to be looking into the Ark. The Apostle 1 Cor. 4. 6 as he would not have the Corinthians think of men above that which is written so much less of God contrary to that which is revealed This is a great evil upon the understandings of men by original sinne that now the mind is not contented with the rule God hath given it They think it a small and contemptible matter to know no more then what may be known by the Scripture but they affect extraordinary things This curiosity is that which filled the Church once with so many Schoolemen and their Questions as Aegypt was once with Caterpillars It is true School-divinity hath its use and so farre as they deal solidly and improve natural reason in any point they are very admirable but when once they fall into their useless unprofitable and sublime Questions where neither the Word of God or sure reason can conduct them then they vanish like smoak in the air how rash are they in their Disputes about Angels With what nice conceits have they obscured the Doctrine of the Trinity Insomuch that we may see much of original sinne in them inclining and hurrying of them to a bold and venturous determination of such things which God hath not manifested so that none of their seraphical sublime or angelical Doctors could begin their Disputations as John his Epistle That which we have seen we have heard and our hands have handled 1 Joh 1. 1. Though therefore the Schoolemen have in somethings their great use yet in their difficult niceties which are but as so many cob-webs there they are as much to be slighted as one king did a man who boasted he could stand at a distance and throw a grain of corn through the eie of a needle Again this original curiosity of the mind venteth it self in all those Magick Arts and Witchcrafts which have abounded in the world as also in judiciary Astrology and such deceitful impostures men affecting as Adam did to be like God to be able to declare the things that are to come Act. 19 19. They are called curious arts Furthermore this curiosity of the mind is seen in nauseating and disdaining known things and what are already discovered and ambitiously thirsting to find out some Veritas incognita as others have done Terra incognita To bring such new things to the world that were never knowen or heard before It 's from this sinful curiosity that men forsake the good Truths of God and runne after heresies errors and whatsoever hath novellisme in it so that he who would examine himself about his regeneration must look to the renovation of his mind in this particular as well as any other Fourthly Original sinne discovereth it self in our minds by the vanity that they are filled with 1 Cor. 3 20 The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain If the thoughts of wise men without the Scripture be vain how much more of men who have no more then natural ability And certainly this must needs be a very heavy censure upon man that he who hath the best parts the greatest understanding yet till grace sanctify he is but a vain man His mind is a vain mind his understanding is a vain understanding many waies the vanity of it might be discovered as thus The understanding of man is naturally more affected with pleasing things then with solid and sound Truths it is more affected with words language jests and merry tales then with that matter which tendeth to spiritual edification Is not this a great instance of the vanity upon our minds to regard leaves more then fruit chaff more then good seed pictures and shews more then substances whence ariseth that delight in embroydered language in playes and Comedies and in Romances and such bubles and empty vapours but from
Images those glorious Altars and many other superstitious wayes of worship but because the fancy was pleased herein what is pleasing to the senses is also carried with delight to the Imagination Insomuch that those Heathens Numa and others who would have no Images to adore their gods by thinking it unbeâ—eeming their greatness were carried by reason and did not give way to the Imagination and this is a very necessary truth for all such who are so difficulty taken off from their Idolatries and Superstitions for what is it but thy fancy thou wouldst have satisfied thou doest not look upon Ordinances and the worship of God as spiritual means to quicken thy faith and to make thee more spiritual but as that whereby thou wouldst have thy Imagination take some corporeal refreshment and satisfaction Even Aristotle saw the vanity of this and therefore would not have any musical delights in the worship of their Heathenish gods And Aquinas following him herein is against musical instruments in the service of God what God appointed in the Old Testament cannot be brought as an argument for any such custome in the New Secondly Towards man here the imagination is as full of evil as the sea of water Prov. 6. 16. One of the seaven things that are there said to be an abomination unto the Lord An heart that deviseth wicked abominations How crafty and subtle is the abomination of man to devise wicked and malicious purposes This is the forge of all those malicious bloody and crafty designes that ever have been acted in the world Read over prophane and sacred Histories and there you will admire what subtle foxes men have been sometimes what cruel lyons they have been at other times all which doth arise from this sinful imagination which is prone to find out all manner of wayes to vent the wickedness that is bound up in the heart so that we need not exclaim on the Devil as if he put this into their hearts for though no doubt sometimes he doth as in Judas yet the heart of it self is ready for any evil SECT XII It continually invents new Sinnes or occasions of Sinnes ALthough much hath been said concerning the original pollution of mans imagination yet still more is to be discovered so that there is a very 〈◊〉 resemblance between mans imagination and those chambers of imagery which Ezekiel beheld in a Vision upon the walls thereof were pourtrayed the forme of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the Idols of the house of Israei Ezek. 8. 9 12. Thu is every mans imagination a table as it were whereon are pictured all the formes and shapes of all kind of evil It may well be called the chamber of mans imagery where are images of jealousy daily created such formes received that do provoke God to wrath and jealously Let us therefore proceed Tenthly In this we have an open field wherein mans imagination doth act numberless evils because of its invention it is continually inventing new sinnes or occasions of sinnes As if the old sinnes and trespasses which had filled the world were not enough What new wayes of impiety are invented new fancies in evil wayes For although invention be indeed principally an act of the understanding yet because as you heard the understanding in its operations hath recourse to the imagination and that is subservient and under-agent to it therefore we may attribute the same things to both especailly the things of invention because a mans imagination hath a peculiar influence therein Now in this respect if there were no other the sinnes of the imagination will encrease like the sands upon the sea-shore It were possible to shew by going over every particular Commandment that the imagination of man doth constantly invent new sinnes against them the Apostacy of man from his first rectitude is emphatically described by the Scripture in this as the general and summe of all that he sought out many inventions Eccles 7. 29. where the wise man having declared that amongst men and women though less amongst women one not so much as good in an ethical and moral sense could be found for in a spiritual sence there is not one man amongst a thousand no not in all mankind that is good but the speaketh of external and moral enquiring then after the cause why such an universal corruption should overflow all mankind insomuch that there is not one amongst a thousand that deserveth the name of a man not such an one as the primitive righteousness did require but not so much as reason judging rightly by ethical Rules would commend he doth clear God from being the Author of this And because this truth is of such great consequence he useth a word of attention Lo Ecce Consider it diligently And secondly he telleth you how he came to the knowledge of it I have found it viz. in the Word of God where you see this Doctrine concerning original corruption is not to be investigated by humane reason as it is discovered by divine revelation I have found it after much and diligent study Oh that those corrupt teachers who deny this original pravity could with Solomon say They have at last after much study found out this truth also Now the Doctrine found out is That God made man right full of righteousness and holiness not onely negatively without sinne but positively full of righteousness but they that is Adam and Eve which are called the man Adam in the words preceding Sought out not being contented with that measure of knowledge and happiness God created them in affecting to be like God Many inventions that is found out many wayes of sinning when they once forsook the strait Rule they diverted and wandered into many crooked paths The Hebrew word Chishbonoth is very emphatical it is used but once more in the Old Testament and that is 2 Chron. 26. 15. where it is said Vzziah used engines invented by cunning men to shoot arrows and great stones withall So that by this word is denoted that subtilty and great artifice which is in mans Imagination to invent any evil way sinnes that never were acted before are found out Every age almost hath new sinnes and whence is this but from the subtilty of mans Imagination to find out new wayes of sinning Hence Rom. 1. 30. one character in the Catalogue of those sinnes attributed to the Heathens is to be Inventers of evil things And certainly here the Imagination of man is very prone that whereas to learn Trades or the Arts there they must have teachers and much time must be allowed them to learn In the invention of evil things there men are taught of their own corrupt hearts to do so We might instance in divers things wherein the sinfull Imagination of man is discovered about inventing of evil new sinnes new oaths new blasphemies new wayes of cheating and dishonesty especially in those new wayes for nourishing pride and wantonness Which is the ridiculous absurd and uncivil
A TREATISE OF Original Sin The First Part. PROVING That it is by pregnant Texts of Scripture vindicated from false Glosses By Anthony Burgess ANCHORA SPEI LONDON Printed in the Year 1658. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER READER THe Doctrine of Original Corruption is as extensive in the usefulnesâ—â— of it â—as the sinne it self is diffusive in the contagion thereof so that as there is none born in a natural way who can plead an immaculate conception either is there any who doth not need profitaâ—â—e information herein for the deep and radical Humiliation of himself before God As for the Doctrine of it it 's easie and difficult easie because we palpably and evidenâ—ly finde the effects thereof Difficult because the exact knowledge of it being chiefly be divine Revelation Noâ—onder if those who attend to Aristole more than Paul and desâ—â—â— be â—ationales rather than fideles have groâ—â—ely 〈◊〉 in the darke they walke in It is the old known saying of Austin Antiquo peccato nihil ad praedicandum notius nihil ad intelligendum secrâ—â—â— Hence it is that as a Popish Writer well observeth Elisim piorum Clyp Quest 12. Artic. 1. When we have heard what any learned men can say yet still we desire to know more about it Nil de eo legitur quin amplius de eo legi desideratur By enquiring our appetites are not so much satisfied as provoked â—et the light of the Scripture is sufficient as to all necessary saving Knowledge about it And as for Curiosities and needlesse Subtilties which are a shell in the Controversie we may throw them them away and eat the Kernel It is acknowledged both by Papists and Protestants that the Controversies about Original Sinne are of very great importance Stapleton chargeth us Proleg Disput de peccat Originali with two capital maternal Errours the one about the Scriptures the other about Original Sinne as if these two were the Joachin and Bâ—â—z our Temple is built upon as if these were the two breasts from which all other erroneous Doctrines suck their pestiferous nature We again on the other side do propugn these two Principles the former whereof we may call Principium cognoscendi and the later principium essendi as the two fountaines of Doctrinal and Practical Piety so that to destroy any of these is to lay the ax to the root of the tree that so no more fruit in Religion may grow thereupon The Pontificians and Protestants are generally agreed in this for some Papists but few dissent from their own Party herein that there is such a thing as Original Sinne and that it is truly properly and univocally a Sinne only they complain of us as too direfully and tragically amplifying the nature of it Hence Hoffmeister Eccius Cassander grant a consent in this onely they think the Protestants words and expressions are capable of a perfective alteration The expresse Adversaries therefore to this Doctrine were the Pelagians of old the Socinians and some Anabaptists of late and more particularly a late English Writer Dr. Taylor Unum Necessarium and in other little Pieces Proh nefas like a second Julian in triumphing language hath with much boldness and audacity decried it as if it were but a non ens and the Disputes needless about it For although sometimes he would make the world believe he holdeth Original Sinne yet these are but words ad frangendam invidiam as Pelagius of old would use the word Grace for when it cometh to the explication he meaneth no more than an Original Curse or else the meer Naturals that he speaketh of complying with Pelagius and some Jesuites in that notion whereby having lost the gratuitals our nature was at first crowned with it is cast into an unfitness for the Kingdom of Heaven What learning and abilities the Author may have I doe not detract from only it 's greatly to be lamented that he should contrary to Cyprian and others take the Gold he had in Jerusalem and carry it into Egypt to build an Idol there He hath fully improved his liberty of Prophesying and waving reverence to the Scriptures Councils and Fathers yea and the Church of England in whose Obedience he doth so glory in as appeareth by the 9th Article and the Order of Administration of Baptism by a sceptical and academical disposition he is fallen into this Heresie for so the denial of Original sinne hath alwayes been accounted Neither let this Writer think that his industrious affectation of words and language will make falshood to be truth There is great difference between skin and bone words and arguments in any Theological Discourse Neither are Tractates veriores quia disertiores there is ambitiosum eloquentiae mendacium And as Austin expressed it arma non vulnerant quia fulgentia â—ed quia fortia It is true if this VVriter hath no Original sinne in him and his Adversaries have then he must needs dispute with great advantage for ignorance and imperfection doth not adhere to his intellectuals as we acknowledge doth to ours and that by Original sinne But it must be confessed he betrayeth much of Original sinne even while he writeth against it and his Arguments as I may so say materialiter prove it while formaliter against it His greatest honour is that a Papist hath written against him One might doubt whether really or by collusion it is done so slightly and calculated wholly according to the Popish Meridian and yet in some respects it is his great disparagement that one of Babylon should appear at least in some measure for an ancient Truth while at the same time one pretending to be of Sion should oppose it But enough of this troublesom matter I now come to acquaint the Reader with the Method I propound in this Book which is first to handle the An sit of Original Sinne Secondly The Quid sit which done I proceed to the two-fold Subject of it mentioned by the Learned The Subject of Inhesion And herein I shew particularly and largely how every power of the Soul is infected by this Leprosie which accomplished I passe to the Subject of Predication shewing That it is in every one naturally born of a woman That omnis homo and totus homo is thus corrupted and then close with the consideration of the Properties and Effects of it All which I have endeavoured to manage practically as well as doctrinally knowing the great and excellent improvement in a spiritual way that may be made of this truth as I experimentally found by the attestation of godly hearers in the preaching thereof and I doubt not but if the Ministers of Christ did more largely insist on this Point they would finde very good success thereby for the through Humiliation of their people the information about Regeneration and the Nature of it it would awaken not only the prophane but the civil and externally moralized persons This would keep a man serious in the wayes of God attending to the treacherous enemy within
an hidden and secret infusion of holiness into our souls whereby we are made new creatures and said to be partakers of the Divine Nature For whereas the Papists would argue as they think very strongly for our Justification by inherent Righteousness from the parallel made between Adam and Christ As say they we are made sinners not by imputation onely but by inherency through Adam's disobedience so we must be made righteous by Christ not by imputation but inherently We retort the Argument and say Because Adam's sin is imputed tous wherby we are made sinners so Christs obedience is made ours whereby we are constituted righteous Yet we grant further That by Christ we are made inherently righteous though by that we are not justified and this inward renovation comes not from Christ by example but a powerfull and secret transformation of the whole man so that as to partake of Adam's sinne we must be born naturally of Adam For if God should create some men in an extraordinary manner not by natural descent from him they would not have this natural contagion cleaving to them so to partake of Christs Righteousness it 's necessary we must be new born by the Spirit of God Thus you see many Reasons compelling us to understand the manner how by Adam 's disobedience we are made sinners to be by natural Propagation For if this foundation be not laid sure the whole fabrick will quickly fall to the ground We come then to the Observation which is SECT II. THat all mankind by Adam 's disobedience are truly and properly made sinners The Text is so clear that we would wonder any should be so deluded as to confront the Truth contained therein Every one that is naturally born of Adam is thereby and in that respect made a sinner though he should have no actual transgessions of his own An Infant that liveth not to be guilty of any actual evil yet because Adam's seed is thereby made a sinner and so a child of Gods wrath Certainly the Apostle would not have been so large and industrious in affirming this Truth But because of the evident necessity to know it and the great utility that may come to us if duly improving this knowledge To be sure he layeth this as a foundation to exalt and magnifie the grace of God by Christ So that they who deny this original contagion must needs rob Christ and his grace of the greatest part of that glory due to him CHAP. VII Of the Souls inward filth and defilement by Adam's Sinne. SECT I. TO explain this profound and weighty Truth consider that expression in the Doctrine That we are by Adam 's disobedience made truly and properly sinners For there are those that hold we receive much hurt Yea some say we are guilty by Adam's disobedience but not made truly and properly sinners they deny there is any inward pollution upon the soul of man When I had proceeded farre in this Discourse of Original Sinne there cometh out an English Writer Dr J. Taylor Vnum Neces in a triumphing and scornfull style like Julian of old peremptorily opposing this Doctrine of inherent pollution by nature He is not meerly Pelagian Arminian Papist or Socinian but an hotchpotch of all So that as there were a Sect of Philosophers as Laertius reports Proem in fin that was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they would chuse out some opinions from all the Sects that were So doth this man most unhappily sometimes select what is most deformed in those several parties With this Writer we shall encounter as often as we find him throwing earth into the pure springs Although the word Sinner in some places is as much as to be an offender to be obnoxious to punishment yet in this place we must understand more as is to be shewed For there are three things we are subject to by Adam's disobedience First There is a participation of the very actual transgression of Adam that very sinne he committed is imputed to us Secondly There is the guilt of this sinne whereby Adam was obnoxious to death and eternal condemnation this also we partake of Lastly There was the deprivation of Gods Image the loss of that upon Adam's transgression so that his soul which was before full of light and a glorious harmony upon this disobedience became like a chaos and confusion And in this state we are born not succeeding Adam in the Image of God he once had but in that horrible confusion and darknesse he was plunged into These three things then we partake of by Adam's disobedience but that which is chiefly intended here and which also my purpose is to treat of chiefly is That inward filth and defilement we are fallen into by Adam 's sin SECT II. 1. THerefore when it is said That we are made sinners by Adam this is not all as if thereby we were put into a necessity of dying or that death is now made a curse to us For thus much the Socinians grant That Adam's sinne did hurt us thus farre That although death was natural to Adam even in the state of integrity yet it was not made necessary nor penal but upon Adam's disobedience But 1. This is false That death would have been natural to Adam though he had not sinned as is to be shewed And In the second place Death as a curse or as made necessary is not all that we are obnoxious unto by Adam's sinne for the Apostle makes that a distinct effect of his disobedience for he sheweth That by Adam's offence sinne did first pass over the whole world and after sin death So that to be a sinner is more than to be obnoxious to death for the Apostle distinguisheth these two Besides why should death fall upon all mankind for Adams sin if so be that that offence was not made every mans and all had not sinned in him Indeed Chrysostom of old expounds this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to punishment and death as if to be sinners were no more than to be mortal Though Chrysostom in some places seemeth not to hold original sinne yet in other places he is expresly for it This Interpretation of Chrysostoms is received by the English Author above-mentioned with much approbation as if to be a sinner were to be handled and dealt with as an offender But the Apostle maketh sinne and death two distinct things the one a consequent from the other because we are sinners we do become mortal Besides to be a sinner is opposite to be righteous in the Text If then that signifie an inherent qualification denominating truly righteous this must also an inherent corruption whereby we are truly made sinners So that this Interpretation hath no probability Yea from Chrystom himself on the place we may have a Consutation of this Exposition For saith he one to be made mortal by him of whom he is born is not absurd but by anothers
the natural Law which was at first in the Creation of man but that primordial and original Law is the same for substance with the moral though differing in some respects To the Argument therefore we say First That as this original sinne is voluntary voluntate causae which was Adam's will so it is also against a Law which was enjoyned Adam For although Adam had not a Law upon him in respect of the beginning or original of the righteousness he had he being created in that and so was not capable of any Law yet in respect of the preservation and continuation of this for himself and his posterity so he had a Law imposed on him and therefore violating of that Law we in him also did violate it You see then this original sin is a transgression of that Law which Adam was under viz. the continuation of the righteousness he was created in both for himself and his posterity Secondly Even by the moral Law or the Decalogue this original corruption is forbidden The Apostle Rom. 7. sheweth That he had not known lust to be a sinne had not the Law said Theu shalt not lust So that as the Law forbiddeth actual lusting thus it doth also the principle and root of it for the Law is spiritual and in its obligation reacheth to the fountain and root of all sin it doth not only prohibit the sinfull motions of thy soul but the cause of all these Even as when it commands any holy duty to love God for instance it requireth that inward sanctification of the whole man whereby he is inabled to love God upon right and induring grounds otherwise if this were not so the habits of sinne would not be against Gods Law nor the habits of Grace required by it as therefore it was with Adam his actual transgression was directly and immediately forbidden by the Law of God but that habital depravation of the whole man which came thereupon was forbidden remotely and by consequence Thus it is with that native contagion we are born in and this should teach us in every sin we commit to think the Law doth not forbid and condemn this actual sin only but the very inward principle of it say to thy self Alas I should not only be without such vain thoughts such vain affections but without an inclination thereunto Therefore mark the Apostle reasoning Ephes 4. 22 24 25. When he had exhorted them to put off the old man that is original sinne and to put on the new man which is the Image of God immediately opposing that See what he inferreth thereupon Wherefore put away lying they must leave that actual sinne because they have in measure subdued original sinne Thus it holds in all other sins put away pride earthliness prophaneness because the old man is first put away in some degrees But oh how little do men attend to this They think of their actual sins they say This I have done is against Gods Law but go no deeper they do not further consider but God forbids and layeth his axe to the root as well as the branches the fruit Thirdly A sinne doth not therefore cease to be a sin because the Law doth not now forbid it it was enough if it were once forbidden and contrary to Gods Law otherwise we might say That all sins which are past are no sins for the Law doth not require that what hath been done should be undone again or not to be done for that is impossible ex natura rei If therefore ever original sinne hath been under a Law prohibitive of it that is enough to make it a sin though now it cannot be helped Hence Almain the Schoolman hath a distinction of Debitum praecepti and Debitum statuti which other Schoolmen also mention now they apply it thus To be born without sin is not say they Debitum praecepti it doth not become due by any precept or command but it is Debitum statuti that is God had first appointed such an order that whosoever should come of Adam should be born in that righteousness which Adam was created in and was to preserve for himself and his posterity so that though there be no direct Praeceptum divinum yet they say there is Ordinatio divina that we should have been born without sinne Although we need not runne to this because it is now against the moral Law of God as you heard proved SECT VI. ANother Objection is from the Justice Equity and Righteousness of God as also his Mercy and Goodness How can it be thought consonant to any of these attributes that we should be involved in guilt and sinne because of anothers especially they urge that Ezek. 18. 18 19. where God saith The child shall not bear the sins of his father and the Lord doth it to stop their prophane caâ—il against his wayes as if they were not equal because the fathers did eat sour grapes and the childrens teeth were set on edge The Remonstrants are so confident that in their Apology cap. 7. they say Neither Scripture nor Gods Truth nor his Justice nor his Mercy and Equity nor the Nature of sinne will permit this To answer this First It is not my purpose at this time to enter into that great Debate Whether the sins of parents are punished in their children And it so How it stands with the Justice of God It is plain That in the second Commandment it is said That God being a jealous God because of Idolatry he will visit the sins of such persons to the third and fourth generation The same likewise is attributed unto God Exod. 34. 7. when his glorious Properties are described experience also in the destruction of Sedom and Gomorrah as also in the drowning of the world doth abundantly testifie this For no doubt there was in those places as God said of Ninevch many little ones that did not know the right hand from the left and so could not have any consent to the actual iniquities of their Parents To reconcile therefore that place of Ezek. 18. where God saith The child shall not bear the iniquity of his Father with those former places hath exercised the thoughts of the most learned men variously endeavouring to unty that knot Though I find some of late understanding that of Ezekiel only for that particular occasion as it did concern the Jews in their particular judgment of Captivity who complained that for their fathers iniquities they were transported into a strange Land So that they think it not to be extended universally but limited to that people only and at that time and that alone to that Land of Israel because they were driven from their own Countrey But whether this Interpretation will abide firm or no it is certain that the Text doth not militate against our cause in hand For 1. As hath been shewed There is not the same reason of parents since Adam 's fall as of Adam for he was a common person and
thee What shall God give all these names to it to make thee afraid and to groan under it yet shall thy heart continue still like the rock and adamant CHAP. VIII Of the Privative Part of Original Sinne. SECT I. Of Adam's begetting Seth in his own likeness GEN. 5. 3. And Adam begat a sonne in his own likeness and after his Image and called his name Seth. MOses in this Chapter giveth a brief and summary capitulation of the Lives and Deaths of the Patriarchs unto Noah mentioning these heads 1. That God made man 2. That he made him in time 3. After his own Image 4. Male and Female 5. He blessed them 6. The imposition of the name Adam to Eve as well as to Adam And this he calleth The Book of the generations of Adam viz. His succession with all his acts of his Life and also his Death otherwise Adam had no generation but was created by God The Hebrew word though sometimes it signifieth a Book or Epistle yet in the general it is no more than a Catalogue or Rehearsal as it is here and so is to be interpreted in some other places the neglect whereof hath in part made an occasion of dispute Whether any Canonical Books be lost or no as Numb 21. 14. whereas the word there is not to be taken for an Historical Volume but the Enumeration or Rehearsal of the ways of the Lord In the next place he proceedeth to Seth not but that Adam had other sons only he mentioneth him as the future head of humane posterity upon the drowning of the world Now concerning him we have his name he was called Seth. There were Heretiques called Sethiani who attributed unto him more than a man but the holy Ghost doth antidote against that opinion by informing of us that he was begotten in a sinfull mortal estate 2. Of whom he was begotten and that is of Adam 3. How or in what manner and that is After Adams Image in his own likeness Adam was created after the Image and likeness of God that is in a most perfect and compleat resemblance for Image and likeness do not differ though the Schoolmen attempt to difference them but it is an Hebraism putting two Substantives together for aggravation sake and it is as much here as an Image exceeding like Thus Adam was made in respect of his soul qualified with holiness like God but in the Text Seth is said to be begotten of Adam in Adam's Image not in Gods that is in a corrupt miserable and mortal estate For whereas Adam was by Nature a man by Condition the Lord and Chief in whom humane Posterity was to be reckoned of As also in respect of corruption now polluted having lost Gods Image Seth was after Adam 's own likenesse in all these three particulars That he was a man like him none can doubt That he was like Adam in respect of his Headship to his Posterity is plain because Abel was dead and Cain with his Posterity was to be destroyed in the floud Not that this is the whole Image or likenesse here spoken of That as Adam was the first Head of mankind so Seth was to be of those who should be preserved in the flood as some would have it For such a resemblance would have been more eminently in Noah who in the Ark seemed to be the common Parent of mankind Therefore in the third place This Image or likenesse to Adam is mentioned eppositely to that Image of God which Adam was created in And if you object Why is it not as Well said of Abel or Cain that Adam begat them after his own Image as well as Seth The Answer is plain Moses in this Historical Capitulation doth not mention all in a Family but such who were onely by a direct Line to descend to their Posterity and to be an Head to that Now not Abel or Cain but Seth was appointed by God in this place And that we might know in what manner all Generations are to descend from him the Scripture doth here inform us That we must not think that Seth had from Adam the Image of God or would propagate it to others but now he and we are as Adam after his fall sinfull and mortal For although the Church hath generally thought of Adam that he did repent and was saved for we doe not reade afterwards of any grosse sinne he committed and God made the glorious Promise of a Saviour to him yet he did not beget Seth as he was regenerated but as a man and so being fallen from that Covenant he was first placed in his personal grace afterwards could not be conveyed to his Posterity as his sinne while a common Parent was We see then though Adam was godly and Seth was likewise holy yet for all that he was born without the Image of God and in a polluted estate Besides therefore in this place is a seasonable mentioning of the likenesse and Image Adam begat Seth in because Moses being here to capitulate their several Generations which doth imply their mortality doth opportunely give the cause of it So that Snecanin Method Distri Cause Sol. dam. cap. 3. his opinion which he offereth to the learned to judge Whether by Adam's Image be not meant his repaired Image with the corrupted one being now assumed unto Gods favour seemeth directly to oppose the Text which calleth it Adam's own Image not Gods SECT II. What Original Sinne is SEeing therefore we have handled the Quid nominis of Original sinne what the chief Names are which the Scripture giveth unto it We come to consider the Quid Rei the Nature and Definition of it And whereas some make it it consist onely in the meer privation of Gods Image Others in a positive inclination unto all evil We shall take in both for although as Calvin well saith He that affirmeth Original sinne to be the privation of Gods Image speaks the whole Nature of it Yet because that doth not so fully and particularly represent the loathsomnesse of it therefore it 's necessary with the Scripture to consider both the Privative and Positive part of original sinne I shall beginne with the Privative part That original sinne is the privation of that original Righteousnesse and glorious Image of God which was at first put into us And this the holy Ghost meaneth when he saith Adam begat Seth after his own likenesse and Image From whence observe That we are by nature without the Image of God we were created in and this is a great part of our original sinne This truth of the losse of Gods Image in us is of very great concernment and therefore to be improved both Doctrinally and Practically It is the greatest losse that ever besell mankind and oh our carnal and dull hearts which can bewail the losse of health of wealth of any outward comfort but this which is the greatest losse of all viz. the Image of God which we should bewail all our life time
Pharisee to boast saying He was not a prophane grosse sinner like a Publican he did not wallow in bodily sinnes of the flesh for he was dangerously diseased with soul sinnes The flesh there made him abominable in the eyes of God for that which they did so highly exalt it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before God What an heavy and sad deceit will this prove when thou shalâ— find that wherein thou blessest thy self and applaudest thy self in will be thy condemnation as Christ told the Pharisees Moses in whom ye trust he will condemn you Oh that this Truth might be like a sword piercing into the secrets of your heart How wilt thou be overwhelmed when that which thou hopest will save thee that will damn thee There is a carnal Religion there is a fleshly devotion in which men putting their confidence may thereby be condemned as well as by grosse prophanenesse Certainly this confidence in what religious duties we perform as some at the last day will plead Have not we prophesied and wrought miracles in thy Name doth insensibly and incurably damn the greatest part of formal Christians and it is very hard to make them discern or judge themselves carnal in this To trust in the arm of flesh they will acknowledge quickly to be a sinne but to trust and rest in the holy duties they have performed out of this sinne no sonnes of Boanerges can awaken them Fourthly A man is naturally carnal in all his religious performances Because when he dâ—h them it is not out of any love to God to exalt and honour him but out of love to himself thinking thereby to aveiâ— some judgement or other It is true we deny not but it's lawfull to serve God to be humbled for sinne with respect to our own good that we may escape temporal evil but yet we are not to do it principally and chiefly for this we are not to uti Deo and frui Creaturis to enjoy the creatures for themselves as the utmost end and make use of God only for our outward help as John 6. 26. our Saviour told the multitude that followed him That they did seek him only because they did eat of the loaves and were siled This is a fundamental principle of flesh in every man by nature not to love himself subordinately to God but God subordinately to himself which is a sinne of a very high nature and immediately opposing the great majesty of God They worship God upon no other reason then what some Heathens did sacrifice to the Devils Tantùm ne noceant That they might do them no hurt I 〈◊〉 not then out of any love to God or desire to magnifie him but wholly for their own ends and hence it is that they alter and change the worship and wayes of God as they please and as it serveth for any political interest as you see in Jeroboam and other wicked Kings Whence is all this but because they make themselves the Alpha and Omega Et Deus non erit Dens nisi homini placuerit How could men thus break the statutes and ordinances of God but because they make their own advantages the supreme Law as if God were for them and they not for him Hence it is also that the Scripture complaineth so much of men Walking in their own Imaginations And Jeroboam 1 King 12. 33. is branded for this that he set up such a worship and Ministry that he had devised of his own heart This then is a sure demonstration of our fleshly minds that in our worship and duties we regard not divine Institutions and Gods Rule but attend only to what is subservient to our purpose Now the foundation of all this is because we do not look upon God as supreme to whom all our senses should bow but referre him and his glory to our selves The Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 16. speaketh of knowing Christ after the flesh and so there is also a knowing of God after the flesh which is when we doe not things purely and sincerely out of respect to his Name but for our own profit and benefit Take heed then of this fleshly frame in thy approaches to God Fifthly The fleshly mind of a man is seen in his spiritual transactions between God and himself In that he doth wholly conceive and imagine such a God and Christ not as the Scripture represents but as he would have and doth most suit with his carnal disposition This is greatly to be observed for because of this though they hear never so much of God and Christ yet because they think them to be such as they would have a God of their own making a Christ of their own making therefore they never truly repent or turn unto God for concerning God they conceive him as altogether mercifull They never think he is a just and holy God They attend not to the sury and vengeance which the Scripture saith is in him against obstinate and impenitent sinners but apprehend him to be one that loveth them and will save them though they go on in all rebellious wayes against him The Psalmist doth notably speak to this purpose Psal 50. 21. where having spoken of such hypocrites that will come and worship God though they retain their old lusts and live in all impurity he addeth Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self They thought God was not provoked with such abominations they thought God would not be angry with them as if he were like themselves And doth not this still continue true in most prophane men Why is it that they do not tremble under the name and thoughts of God Why is it that they roar not out with fear lest God should damn them Is it not because they make a God like themselves They love themselves and acquit themselves they easily think well of themselvs and therefore they think God will do so also and thus they do likewise with Christ They represent him to be a Saviour and a Saviour only They consider not that he died to conquer the Devil to make us a peculiar people zealous of good works They attend not to the purifying and cleansing power of Christs death from the strength and power of lusts within as well as from the guilt and damnation by it which being so they can trust in Christ and put their whole hope in Christ although they live in all disobedience at the same time and therefore whereas we might wonder how prophane men can live as they do Where are their thoughts of God and Christ Why are they not stricken with astonishment when they hear of them Alas you may cease to wonder for the Scripture God the Scripture-Christ in the Scripture-way they do not think of but a God and a Christ which is a meer Idol in their own hearts set up by themselves Sixthly The fleshly mind of a man is seen in running into extreams and so never submitting themselves to Gods word which is alwayes the same So
of men had committed some crimes for which they were adjudged to bodies as unto prisons and dungeons How comes it about that the rational part of a man which was made to be the guide and called by Philosophers the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it should follow after the inferiour lusts of the soul That this candle should be put not under a bushel but a dunghill That the elder should serve the younger That the tail should lead the head we are not carried out to what reason by the word of God commands but by what every sinfull affection doth suggest Those that say this rebellion between the mind and affections was from the Creation that God made man with this contrariety in himself must needs make God the author of sin but God saw every thing that he had made and it was exceeding good If then thou doubtest whether this universal pollution be upon thee look into thy self observe the rebellion the repugnancy there unto all light whether natural or supernatural and this will make thee readily confess it SECT VI. 6. THe incurvation of the soul unto all earthly and worldly objects this also makes it plain we came with original sin into the world The very making of the body different from other creatures who look downwards doth denote that therfore God created us that both soul and body should look upwards But is not every mans soul till rectified by grace bowed down to these earthly vanities no more able to soar up to Heaven than the worm can flie Now this is a plain sign of thy sinful apostate condition It is one of Hippocrates his rules That when a sick man catcheth inordinatly at the feathers of his pillow or at straws and any such light matter it is a sign of death and truly to see men by nature so immoderatly snatching and catching at these worldly things argue thou art a dying a perishing man unless Gods grace doth interpose As the Sun though with its beams it shine upon the earth yet it is not thereby defiled So man ought though he meddle in all outward affairs though he marry though he buy and sell and use this world yet he ought not in the least manner to soil and pollute his soul thereby But as the body deprived of the soul fals prostrate on the ground thus doth man deprived of Gods Image so that he is never able to get above the creatures but is vassaliz'd to them SECT VII THe work remaining is to give further reasons the Scripture being first laid as a foundation to demonstrate this truth That we are by nature originally defiled For though man be unwilling to be found thus a sinner and the entertaining of this truth seemeth to strike down all the hopes and comforts that a naturall man hath Believe this and all men as in respect of defect are so many damned men so that flesh and blood must needs deny cavill distinguish and turn it self into a thousand shapes ere it will acknowledge it yet look we into our selves diligently and compare our selves with the glass of Gods Word we cannot but say That all we have heard by the Ministers all that Sermons and Books tell us come not up to what we feel in our selves So that as the Apostle when he said This corruption shall put on incorruption he did cutem tangere did lay his hand upon his body as Tertullian thought so do thou strike upon thy thigh and smite upon thy breast and say within this body lieth a soul covered all over with sinne and damnable guilt To assure us more herein these further discoveries may be added First That spirituall death in sinne which we are all plunged into whereby we do become altogether senseless and stupid as to any spirituall concernement The death threatned upon Adam's trangression was spirituall as well as corporall and therefore Ephes 2. We are said to be dead in sinnes till Christ quicken us by his power Now this is a full discovery that we have lost Gods Image and all spiritual life otherwise why should not spirituall life be as quick active and moving towards spirituall objects as our naturall and corporall life is to corporall things Why is it that when any do threaten corporall death and outward misery we are afraid and will give all we have for this corporall life But when the Devil tempts and the world tempts so that we are in danger of loosing eternal life we have no trembling or horror taking hold upon us Nebuchadnezzar made a law that whosoever would not worship his Image should be cast into a fiery furnace and unless the three Worthies none refused so great a matter is the fear of a naturall death But hath not God threatned hell which is ten thousand times more dreadfull then that fiery fornace to every one that goeth on wickedly yet none trembleth because of this Is not this plain then that thou art a dead man in sinne Further concerning our corporall life how sollicitous are we about the preserving of it what carking and caring for meat and raiment what labour for the back and the belly Is not the greatest imployment in the world for these two things and all this is that our frail perishing life may yet be continued But do men naturally manifest any such thoughts and diligence about the meanes of a spirituall life The preaching of the Word the Ordinances these God hath appointed to be spirituall food by these our heavenly life is maintained these are the oyl to keep that lamp burning But do not all men by nature loath these are they not a burden to them do they ever pant and thirst or hunger after these things as men do for meat or drink now why is all this but because we have no spirituall life in us So that if you do consider the insensibleness and stupidity of every naturall man as to things of an heavenly aspect you need no more to perswade you that Gods Image is lost and we are dead in sinne When the body needeth food needeth raiment all is supplyed but so thy soul needeth Christ needeth grace and there is not the least thought to have a supply yea we are not only dead in sinne but have been a long while thus dead and if she said of Lazarus Joh. 11. 39. Lord by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four dayes How much more may we say this in a spirituall sense of thee who it may be hast been dead fourty or fifty years Secondly This may be further inlarged by a consectary from the former will not this abundantly declare we are all over sinfull Because heavenly things are not such objects of delight and pleasure to us as carnall and worldly things are This is a palpable demonstration of our wretched pollution That we cannot feel any sweetness any pleasure or joy in those things which immediately concern God Adam in his state of integrity was like Jacob's ladder the foot whereof
some would absurdly question it That without the knowledge of Christ and faith in him none can be saved And that none by nature can come to this knowledge then it followeth undeniably that damnable ignorance doth cover the face of our souls as darkness did the deep at first That there is a very Chaos in our souls Oh then that we had knowledge to know our ignorance Oh that the dark dungeon we are shut up in might not be so pleasing to us In that the Gospel is called a mystery In that flesh and blood doth not reveal the things of Christ to us this sheweth our wretched estate in sin Adam had knowledge about the meanes rending to everlasting happiness otherwise God would have made him imperfect but now we are ignorant of Christ the way All that live in the Church had it not been for revealed light would have groped in darkness as we see all Heathens and Pagans do If therefore you would see what our natures are of themselves consider the Sanages the Indians the Pagans of the world who as to any right knowledge of God have little more then bruit beasts we cannot so well see what mans nature is of it self who live in the Church because there is the light of the Gospel and many times godly education and Christian institution of us while young doth restrain sinne otherwise if there were not this planting and watering of us we should not know any more about Christ then the most rude Barbarian that is Take off then those ornaments those supernaturall additaments that God hath put upon us who live under the Gospel and then our nakedness and deformity will plainly appear Fifthly The wofull captivity and bondage we are in to Satan by nature doth also manifest our originall defilement For were we not cast off by God did not sinne make us like hell why could so many legious of Devils dwell in us Eph 2 The prince of darkness the god of this world is said to rule in the hearts of the disobedient and such we are all by nature yea we are till regenerated in the snares of the Devil and taken captive at his will Therefore when Christ sent his Disciples to preach he said He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven Thus the Devil hath his throne in all mens hearts till Christ who is stronger cast him out It is trne by wicked and ungodly customes in sinne The Devil taketh further possession as we see in Ananias and in Judas The Devil is said to enter into him after the eating of the sop not but that he was before in him only he had more power and strength over him Thus he doth possess the souls of all that are born till regenerated and by frequent actings of sinne he setleth his kingdome more firmely Lastly This may fully discover our originall pollution In that even in respect of naturall things we are much weakened and debilitated our understandings are not able to find out even naturall truths Insomuch that there was a famous sect of the Academicks who held That nihil scitur we know nothing at all Even Aristotle who is prophanely made to be by some the same in naturalls which Christ was in supernaturall yea Scaliger calls him Vltimus Musarum conatus as if nature her self could not send forth a greater Artist yet his known saying That our understandings in respect of the celestiall bodies especially are but noctuae ad solem owles to the Sunne makes it appear that we are ignorant of more things then we know yea and which is greatly to be bewailed The more learning and parts men have had they have been more mischiefed by them insomuch that meer Ideots and naturall fooles have been less wicked then they so that humane abilities when polished by arts have been like wine to a feavourish man like a sword in a mad mans hand neither did God ever choose many of the wise men of the world Austin being filled with humane eloquence this was a great prejudice to him in imbracing Christianity he contemned the simplicity of the Scripture dedignabar esse parvulus as he confessed And Scotus who for his acute understanding was called Doctor subtilis yet the great Historian Jovius giveth this censure of him That he was ad ludibrium Theologiae natus born to make Religion a scorn and a reproach because he could dispute every point probably on all sides And memorable is that of profound Bradwardine who before he was cordially affected with the grace of God confesseth That when he heard Paul's Epistles read he did dispise them because Paul had not metaphisicum ingenium a metaphysicall head Thus you see that even those poor abilities that with much labour are attained make us the worse for them CHAP. XXII A Comparison and Opposition between the first and second Adam as introductory to this Question How this Corruption is propagated SECT I. 1 COR. 15. 49. And as we have born the Image of the earthy we shall also bear the Image of the heavenly THe Apostles chief scope in this Chapter is to corroborate and establish one main Fundamental Article and Principle in Religion which is the Resurrection of the dead This Truth as it is Fiducia Christianorum the very confidence and life of believers so it hath been opposed and denied by many as most absurd and fabulous Insomuch that what Tertullian said concerning Christ who is God becoming man and crucified for us Prorsus credibile quia impossibile the same may be applied to this Truth Therefore it is the Object of Faith because reason cannot comprehend it Now among many other Arguments by which the Apostle statuminateth this Doctrine Christ's Resurrection is most palmarious For although to Heathens this Argument would not be valid yet to the Corinthians who either doubted of or denied the Resurrection but did not wholly abandon the Christian Faith this reason would be very cogent So that the Corinthians either doubt or infidelity in this Point hath made this Doctrine the more unquestionably true so that doubts and heresies have been over-ruled by God to make Truth more orient like the file to rusty iron and like the shaking of the Tree which maketh the root faster and deeper But whereas the Doubt may be Wherein lieth the strength of this Argument Christ is risen therefore his members or all that are his shall rise For you must know the Apostle's Arguments doe principally prove the blessed and happy Resurrection of the Just the Wicked they shall rise but by the power of Christ as a Judge not as members united to him their Head At the twentieth verse he giveth us a two-fold reason of that connexion First Christ is the first-fruits now the first fruits sanctified the whole crop of Corn and although they were taken before the rest yet this did assure that all would be taken in its time Thus Christ being the first fruits did sanctifie all his people and his Resurrection was an assured
is causally and seminally in the first man so propagated from man to man but this hath deservedly been acknowledged the hardest knot to unty in all this doctrinal truth about original sinne how the soul can come to be polluted if created from God In this Argument The Pelagians did much tryumph and Austin was so puzled with it that he many times confesseth his ignorance at least his doubt in this point yea he saith That he could neither legendo erando or ratiocinando find out how the propagation of original sinne and the creation of the soul could be defended together But of this more in its time SECT II. The great Objections that are against asserting the Souls Creation IT is certain that here are dangerous rocks on both sides for if we say the soul is created then seeing God cannot but make every thing holy he cannot make a sinfull soul how then can it be infected with sinne Again if the soul be created then it was not virtually in Adam then it could not be said to sinne in him because it was never in him for why did not Christ sinne in him but because he was not seminally in him and if the soul was never radically in Adam how can it be polluted is it just with God to punish that with Adams sinne which never sinned in Adam If it be said that the soul when united to the body doth from that receive infection as if pure liquour were powred into a stinking vessel This will not solve but increase the doubt for a vessel indeed may pollute liquour because they are both bodies and so act by a corporall contact but the soul is a spirit and its a rule say they received by all that a body cannot act upon a spirit Besides sinne is properly in the soul and must from that be conveyed to the body The body whie without a soul is not capable of sinne no more then a bruit beast It hath no reason it is under no law how then can that communicate sinne to the soul when it hath none at all it self Thus you see what strong cords here are even that a Sampson can hardly break SECT III. Objections against holding that the Souls come by Generation Multiplication c. THen on the other side if you think that the only way to maintain the propagation of original corruption is to hold that the souls are not immediately created of God but either by generation or multiplication or some other way Then here also are more dangerous rocks for if we hold this we seem to contradict some strong Texts of Scripture that maketh God the immediate giver of the soul Besides we must then necessarily make it material yea though they who hold the traduction of the soul will not grant that consequence yet it cannot be avoided but what is generable is corruptible and so the soul must be mortall and that rule of Aquinas seemeth to carry much evident light with it Quod dependet a materiâ quoad fieri dependet quod existere This rule holds true in every thing else and why should it be denied about the soul if the soul in its beginning depends upon the body it cannot continue seperate from it and so be immortal SECT IV. THus you see there is a veil upon the face of this Doctrine But although modesty and sobriety be necessary in this point as also in the Doctrine of the Trinity and Christs incarnation yet as in them its necessary to search the Scriptures and so farre to improve the light shining from them that we may be able to convince heretical gainsayers Thus it is also in this truth so much knowledge as is not forbidden yea as is revealed in the Scripture let us thankfully acknowledge and humbly yet with diligence and constancy improve against those who by reason of these difficulties would overthrow the fundamental Truth it self we must not for some seeming Objections forsake the clear Texts of Scripture It commonly falleth out that almost in every great and fundamental truth in Religion as the Doctrine of the Trinity the Doctrine of Justification There is some Objection above all the rest that hath more difficulty in it then ordinary and so it is here but let us not be afraid to get Canaan because of some Anakims in the way SECT V. The severall Wayes that learned Men have gone to remove the aforesaid Difficulties TO guid you therefore in this wilderness to it let us consider what are the several waies that many either of learned or of corrupt judgements have said to the clearing of this And First There are and have been some in the Church following Origen who also followed Plato deriving many opinions from him who did thus think to make this truth easy By holding that the souls were created long before the bodies and that upon their evill and sinne committed they were adjudged to be put into bodies and so from hence it is that they say man is so propense to all evill Therefore they will not say That the souls of men are either by traduction or immediate creation and infusion into the body but that they were created long before the body and while preexistent before it they deserved to be put into this dark prison of the body There was one Vincentius Victor according to his name bold and audacious who disliked Austin for his cunctation and deliberation in the point of the traduction of the soul which occasioned Austin to write four Books De origine animae Now this Vincentius he affirmed That the soul was created before the body and did deserve to be made part of that man who is a sinner yea that it did deserve to be made peccatrix a sinner Some have also thought that this was a general received opinion amongst the Jewes and they proove it from that question proposed to Christ concerning the man born blind yea they were Christs Disciples that did make that question so that it seemeth they were still infected with that vulgar error for Joh. 92 They say Master who did sinne this man or his parents that he should be born blind They ask whether the sinnes of the mans parents or his own sinnes made him to be born blind now he could not have any sinnes before he was born unless his soul did preexist before his body and it seemeth the Pharisees concluded that they were his own sinnes for they say ver 34. Thou wast altogether born in sinnes They did not happily mean original sinne for they say sinnes which must be actual sinnes either his own or his parents But this opinion is so wicked and absurd that to name it is enough to refel it and for this monstrous figment might Origen be called Centaurus as well as for others Only two things are to be said to it First If souls for sinnes acted were adjudged to their bodies how is it that the Scripture giveth that command of Increase and multiply how is it
necessary that he should create souls daily but conserve the order appointed as he doth about the Heavens The Answer is easie therefore do the words relate to the Creation at first with the conservation of them because new Heavens and new earths are not every day made but both they and we do acknowledge new souls are every day produced as often as a man is born and God at first making Adam's soul by breathing into it the same order is still to be conserved This Text thus cleared we may adde as proofs also of the like kind Isa 42. 5. Though Austin thought by spirit there might be meant the sanctifying Spirit of God But that hath no probability Psal 33. 15. the Psalmist saith God hath fashioned the hearts of men alike or wholly throughout By which is meant the soul of a man in all its thoughts and workings because the soul puts forth its vital actions in the heart That also is remarkable which yet I find not mentioned by any in this Controversie Jer. 38. 16. where Zedekiah maketh an oath to Jeremiah that he will not kill him after this manner Thus saith the Lord who made us this soul not this body but this soul he putteth that into the oath intimating what an heavy sinne it would be to kill a man that is innocent seeing he hath his soul from God I shall mention but one Text more and that is in the New Testament which seemeth clearly to demonstrate the creation of the soul Heb. 12 9. We have had fathers of our flesh that corrected us c. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits I think this Text may put us out of all doubt God is opposed as a Father to our natural parents God is called a Father of Spirits natural parents father of our flesh Now if our souls did come from our parents they might be called fathers of our spirits as well as of our flesh The Apostles Argument would have no force if the Creation of the soul by God alone and the generation of the flesh only by natural parents be not asserted Thus Numb 16. 20. as also Chap. 27. 16. God is there styled The God of the spirit of all flesh in a peculiar manner It may be wondered that though Austin busied himself so much in finding out of this Truth diligently attending to the Scripture yet he never mentioned this place Certainly this Text might have removed his doubt and made him wholly positive in affirming the creation of the soul That which I find later Writers reply to it is That God is called the Father of Spirits in respect of Regeneration because he sanctifieth and maketh holy But the opposition to our fathers of the flesh evidently confuteth this and withall they can never shew that God is called a Father of Spirits or a God of Spirits but in respect of Creation not Regeneration It is true the word spirit may sometimes be used for a man as regenerate as flesh is for a man wholly corrupt but they can never shew that the word spirits in the plural number is taken for men regenerate Vse Of Exhortation To quicken up your attention to this Truth do not think this is unprofitable and uselesse that this Question is like those of which Paul complaineth some doted foolish and endlesse No it is very profitable for in knowing the original of thy soul how it cometh even from God himself may it not shame thee to make thy self like a beast as if thou hadst no better soul then they have Prophanenesse and sottish ignorance do greatly oppose the nature of thy soul Why do men say in effect Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die but as if they and beasts were all alike And why is it that you see so many have no understanding but that they are like the horse and the mule Why doth the Scripture compare wicked men to so many kind of beasts but because they live as if God had put no rational soul into them That though in the making of their bodies they differ from beasts yet in their souls they do greatly agree SECT III. THus you see we are examining Whether that Doctrine of the Propagation of souls from parents be a sure foundation to build upon in clearing the conveyance of original sinne to Adam's posterity And we have evidently proved That the soul hath its immediate creation from God So that to runne to the Sanctuary of the Souls Traduction would be to implore a dangerous errour to assist the Truth As God needeth not a lie so neither doth his Truth any error And indeed Although I shall not call the Doctrine of the Creation of the soul an article of faith because so many learned men have hesitated therein So that it would be an high breach of charity to commaculate such with the note of heresie yet we may with Hierom call it Ecclesiasticum dogma a Doctrine that the most Orthodox have alwayes received So that the contrary opinion seemeth to be absurd as Whitaker well saith Although Vorstius would make this dispute to be meerly philosophical in his Antibellarm Having therefore laid down those Texts which are a sure pillar of this Truth we shall adde some further reasons and then make use of this point which is very fruitfull SECT IV. Arguments from Scripture to prove the Souls Creation THe first Reason which may appear in the defence of the Souls immediate Creation from God is From the historical Narration which Moses makes of the beginning and original of Adam 's soul For as God when he was to create man did it in a more transcendent and glorious way then when he made beasts or the other creatures For then he said Let there be light and Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life Gen. 1. 20. And so Let the earth bring forth the living creatures the beasts after their kind But when he comes to make man then the expression is altered Let us make man in our Image and Gen. 2. 7. where we have the manner of the execution of this counsel it is said He formed the body of Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life No such thing was done to other creatures So that you see Adam's soul was from God immediately though his body was from the earth This breathing of life into Adam was infusing of the rational soul Some Ancients thought that it was the bestowing of the holy Ghost upon Adam and that he had his rational soul before They compare it with Christs breathing on his Disciples whereby was communicated the holy Ghost Now it is plain they had their rational souls before This is vain because by the breathing of this life it 's said Adam became a living soul so that he was but a dead lump of earth as it were before And indeed this Text is so clear that I know
the Sacrament what endlesse controversies hath it begotten And therefore it was the King of Navarr's counsel to the Divines when the Lutherans and Calvinists were upon pacification about the Sacrament that they should not De modo ultra modum disputare Now although this be good counsel yet when heretical and erroneous opinions have invaded the Modus then it is our duty to maintain not onely the truth of a thing but the manner of it also What is a greater mystery then the Sonne of God having his being from the Father He that will touch this mystery with meer natural reason doth as if the Smith should handle his live-coals with his hands and not the Tongs saith Chrysostome yet because of the Socinians who say He is onely a made God in time and hath his Deity by donation We are forced not to be content onely to believe that he is the Sonne of God but also how viz. By eternal Generation So in the great Controversie with the Arminians about the conversion of man It is not enough to say we are converted by grace but are necessitated also to expresse the manner How not by a moral suasion or per modum sapientiae onely but by invincible efficacy and power also Thus the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament was necessarily to be determined against the Lutherans Thus it is in our point in hand we might well enough sit down with this Truth That original sinne is communicated to every sonne of Adam and enquire no further as the primitive Church did till Austin's time in a great measure But when Heretiques will deny the true Doctrine because the manner is difficult to expresse or when men will deny the Creation of the soul then it 's our duty in a sober manner to search into the way how we partake of it Neither doth the fore mentioned Text contradict this For though we know not how the bones grow in the womb exactly and punctually yet we know in the general that they do by virtue of generation So although we know not particularly how the soul cometh to have its being in the body yet in the general that it is by Creation we have had Scripture light fully to convince us therein This then premised Let us proceed to clear the Doctrine of the Propagation of original sinne and that by several Propositions which will be as so many steps and degrees to the main Truth SECT VII Propositions to clear the Doctrine of the Propagation of Original Sinne by the Souls Creation FIrst We lay this for a foundation That God doth create the soul of every man a spiritual substance This Proposition must be the foundation-stone to build upon That God doth create the soul immediately you have heard several Texts attesting thereunto So that Bellarmine was too dissident when moved it seemed by Austin doth wave all Texts of Scripture for the creation of the soul and so proceedeth to other Arguments Perierius on 2 Chap. of Genes vers 7. giveth a better censure of Austin for having produced some Texts for the Creation of the soul he saith Conatur Augustinus sed frustra hos locos elidere I shall adde one more fit for that purpose also The Text is 1 Pet. 4. 19. Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls unto God as to a faithfull Creator Here the afflicted children of God are required as Christ did to commend their souls to God and the reason is Because he is a faithfull Creator of them So that Gods Creation of them is here made an engagement to God to keep them they being now sanctified and made holy Our souls then are created In the next place I say they are created Substances This is to obviate those that make the soul onely an accident or the crasis and temperament of the humours Galen as Cerda on Tertull de animâ alledgeth him in his second Book of prediction by the pulses hath this passage Hitherto I have doubted what should be the substance of the soul but by age and experience being made wiser I dare be bold to affirm it is no other thing then the temperament He was not made wiser but more absurd and foolish in this thing Yea there is one Dicaearchus much spoken of that said The soul was nothing it was but an opinion And the Mortalists they directly joyn with Galen's opinion Who would think that when we have the Scripture speaking so plainly about the soul that it is a spirit that it removeth when the body is killed that any should be delivered up to such licentious and abominable Doctrines Again I adde God createth it a spiritual substance This opposeth the Sadduces who denied any spirits It is plaine by Scripture that they are substances and spiritual ones because they subsist without the body Tertullian though he doth so acutely perstringe the Philosophers about the soul yet some of them were more sound then he Men saith he have thought about the soul either as Platonis honor Zenonis vigor Aristotelis tenor Epicuri stupor Heracliti maestor Empedoclis furor persuaserint It is true some of these thought the souls to be bodies and so doth Tertullian and happily he might have been excused by taking body largely for that which is not nihil in which sense he attributeth a body to God but that he saith the soul is not only a body but effigiated and shaped also yea that the souls differ in sex which is very irrational We may then conclude this with a saying of Numertus That if any souls are corporeal it is of those who say souls are corporeal A second Proposition is That though God doth create immediately the souls of all men spiritual substances yet they are not compleat and perfect substances as Angles are but the essential parts of men Upon this Proposition depends much weight of this Truth about the communicating of original sinne for we are apt to think God createth our souls like Angels perfect and having subsistency of themselves whereas they are created as parts of a man neither do they come from God any otherwise If God should create a soul to subsist of it self and not to be united to the body to constitute a man that soul would not be polluted But because every soul is created as an essential part of man and so hath its being Hence it is That it cometh into the world part of Adam and so obnoxious to that curse which he had deserved whatsoever then in its first being is part of man that is partaker of Adam's sinne and curse But the soul in its first instant of being is part of man therefore no wonder if it became polluted and cursed The example of that miraculous Resurrection of Lazarus and others may something clear this they were fully dead their souls and bodies union dissolved yet because their souls were not made perfect and pure without sinne and translated into Heaven but
God I answer The Meritorious cause is Adam's disobedience by his transgression he demerited this for all that should come of him And if you say Who putteth the sinne in I answer There is no efficient cause that putteth it in It is enough that God doth justly refuse to give or continue his Image And this being denied the soul because a subject either of holinesse or sinne when wanting one must necessarily fall into the other Thus it is with the souls being polluted as it is with night there is no efficient cause of the night only the withdrawing of the Sunne necessarily maketh it So God doth nothing positively to make the soul sinfull but according to his just appointment at first denieth that righteousnesse which Adam wilfully put away from himself and his posterity So that we may as easily conceive of every childs souls pollution by sinne as of Adam and Eve themselves God made them righteous but upon their transgression they became unclean and sinfull How was this God in justice denied the continuance of this holinesse to them any longer so that they became sinfull not because God infused evil but denied him that righteousnesse to them This may fully satisfie the sober and modest minded man Therefore the last Proposition is That we cannot say the soul being pure in it self cometh into the body and so is insected As if some wine should be put in a poisoned vessel for the soul and the body do mutually infect one another not physically by contact but morally For the soul being destitute of the Image of God in all its operations is sinfull and so all the bodily actions are polluted And then again the body that having lost the properties it had before the fall is a clod and a burden to the soul Thus they doe mutually help to damne one another the soul polluteth the body and the body that again polluteth the soul And thus those two which at first God put together in so near an union to make man happy are now so defiled that both from soul and from body the matter of his damnation doth arise It is true we may say inchoatively Sinne it in the body before enlivened by the soul in which sense David bewailed his being conceived in sinne but explicitely and formally it cannot be and therefore we are not to conceive sinne in the body before the soul be united or in the soul before the body be joyned to it but as soon as they both became man then they are under the just curse of God and the soul being blind and the body same they both fall into that eternal pit of damnation if the grace of God deliver not I may in time shew how many wayes the soul defileth the body and the body againe infecteth the soul viz. in a moral sense and therefore let this suffice for the present Onely from what hath been said let us turn our Disputation into Deploration Let the head busied to argue be now as much exercised to weep Jeremiah wished his head was a fountain of tears for the slain of his people and that was but a temporal death and that of one Nation only How much more may we desir so for the spiritual death and that of all in the world Say unto all Heretical Teachers Get ye behind me Satans you hinder and trouble me in my humiliation Is not the Infant new born swadled and bound up hand and feet and so lieth crying A sad representation that so God might bind every one and send him crying to Hell Thus original sinne opened Hell kindled the fire of Hell there was no Hell till this was committed Oh grievous necessity and unhappy condition we are all born in Antequam peccemus peccato constringimur antequam delinquimus delicto tenemur This even this seriously considered should make us have no rest till we be put into the second Adam in whom we have Justification and Salvation A TREATISE OF Original Sin The Third Part. HANDLING The Subject of ORIGINAL SINN IN What Part it doth reside and what Powers of the Soul are corrupted by it By Anthony Burgess ANCHORA SPEI LONDON Printed in the Year 1658. A TREATISE OF Original Sinne. PART III. CHAP. I. Of the Pollution of the Mind with Original Sinne. SECT I. EPHES. 4. 23. And be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind COncerning our Subject of Original Sinne these particulars have been largely treated on viz. That it is What it is and How it is communicated The next thing therefore in our method to be considered is The Subject of Inhesion wherein it is in what part it doth reside and what powers of the soul are corrupted by it There is indeed made by Divines a two fold Subject of original sinne 1. Of Predication the persons in whom it is affirmed to be and that is in all who naturally come of Adam Christ only is excepted And in this there is not much controversie onely the Francisean Papists opposing the Dominicans do hotly contend that the Virgin Mary was by special priviledge exempted from original sinne Scotus seemeth to be the first that made it received as a kind of an Ecclesiastical opinion whereas formerly it was but thought doubtfull or at most probable It is not worth the while to trouble you with this and I may have occasion ere the subject be dispatched to say what will be necessary to it I shall therefore proceed to that which is more practical and profitable even to search into the seat and bowels of this original sinne that we may be fully informed no part of the soul is free from this pestilence To which truth the Text in hand will contribute great assistance And For the Coherence of it briefly take notice that the Apostle at the 17th verse giveth a short but dreadfull Description of a Gentile conversation or the life of one without the knowledge of Christ wherein you may observe a three-fold ignorance or blindness upon all such so impossible is it that of themselves they should ever come to see There is a natural blindness a voluntary contracted blindness and a Judicial one inflicted on them by God for abuse of natural light These there are mentioned in the 18th verse And in this vers 19. we have the formidable consequence declared That being past feeling no remorse of conscience in them They give up themselves to all wickednesse with greedinesse Oh that this were only among Pagans But how many have this natural voluntary and judicial blindness and obstinacy upon them under the light of the Gospel Yea their eyes are more blinded and hearts more hardned where the means of grace have been contemned then in the places where the name of Christ hath not been known This black condition of Heathens being described he compareth those of Christians with it and so we have darkness and light here set together And this the Apostle declareth vers 20. But ye have not so learned Christ Christ
for fifteen hundred yeares It is Bellarmine that saith so but our Divines had detected this falshood long before Jansenius Howsoever Austin may use the word yet the Scripture expresseth that which we call the will by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A second word to express liberty is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 liberty yet this is not so much applied to the liberty of the will as to the liberty of a man as here in the Text the sonne shall make you free your persons not your wils but because there is an universal bondage in all the powers of the soul to sinne blindness in the mind contumacy in the will for Quid est libertas sine gratiâ nisi contumacia What is liberty in the will without grace but contumacy against God and a wilfull delight in evil wayes Inordinacy in the affections therefore the person is said to be made free not but that the will is principally included in this only the will is not all that is made free 2 Cor 3. 17 where the spirit of the Lord is thereby is liberty It 's from the Spirit of God we obtain liberty from sinne and also from servile slavish feares The Jesuites would have this liberty nothing to the purpose in the controversie de libero arbirio for say they this is a spiritual mistical liberty libertas à peccate and they are treating of libertas naturae which they make to consist in an indifferency to good or evil but by their favour this is a proper liberty and it is this that the Pelagians did most controvert about and still the proper dispute between the orthodox and their adversaries is in this particular Whether there be any liberty or freedome in a mans will without grace to shake off the deminion of sinne so that they keep most properly to the state of the question who are diligent in the opening of the nature of this liberty Another word which the Scripture useth to express this free-will by is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5. 2 Phil. 1. 4 and this is very proper and full when we do a thing not by constraint or by a natural necessity then we do it freely therein we shew our liberty so that liberty doth oppose coaction and natural necessity It is impossible the will should in its immediate elicite acts be compelled for then it should be voluntas and noluntas at the same time then velle would be nolle which is an high contradiction Therefore liberty doth necessarly oppose constraint but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth also oppose a natural necessity I say a natural necessity for there are other necessities that liberty doth consist with yea and the more necessary the more free as in time is to be shewed Thus though the stone hath an inclination to descend downwards yet because the stones motion is from a natural necessary principle therefore it is not free Beasts likewise though they exceed the inanimate creatures yet they do not agere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voluntarily They do act spontaneously but not voluntary because a natural principle of sence doth determine them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed Heb. 10. 26 is translated wilfully If we sinne wilfully after we have known the truth but there it signifieth an high degree of the obstinacy of the will and a confirmation in evil against great light and knowledge but commonly it signifieth doing a thing so as not to be constrained to it Platonical Philosophers call free-will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too proud a word to be given to a creature and therefore the ancient Greek Fathers being many of them Platonists did greatly obscure the glory of grace by receiving Platonical words of which this is one Indeed they gave to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is too much for a creature which hath a necessity of subordination to God and dependency on him The Stoicks they express free-will by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is in our own power The Aristotelians express it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Scripture expression likewise Though the Scripture and Aristotelians differ as much as light and darkness about the nature of liberty As the Ancients by following Platonical Philosophy so the Neotericks especially the Jesuites by following Aristotle have greatly prejudiced the Doctrine of free-grace setting up free-will in the room thereof There is one expression more and the Scripture hath it but once which is the most emphatical in describing of this liberty and that is 1 Cor. 7. 37. Having power over a mans own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for liberty lieth in some kinds of some dominion to have our own will hence in liberty we may conceive something Negative and something Positive Negative and that is not to be compelled not to be constrained not to be inslaved Positive and that is to have some power and dominion over the actions of our will as the Apostle instanceth in him who had decreed to keep his virgin from marriage This man is said to have power over his own will By these Scripture words we may come to understand in a great measure what liberty and freedome of will is ¶ 5. Some Observations concerning the Promoters of the Doctrine of Free-Will how Unpleasing the contrary Doctrine is to flesh and blood with some advice about it SEcondly take notice That it is the great purpose and design of some to go contrary to the plain intent of the Scripture For many in all ages of the Church have with all their learning and parts endeavoured to set up this Idol of Free-will whereas the great drift of the Scripture is to advance and set up the free grace and free gift of God The Apostles they write to debase man and to exalt the grace of God Erronious persons they dispute and write to exalt the will of man and to take off from the grace of God What a loud trumpet is Paul in his Epistles to sound forth the praises of free grace not only free grace in justification but free grace also in sanctification It 's the grace of God that doth not only pardon the guilt of sinne but conquer the power of it Consider then whether it be better to set up Dagon or the Ark the free-will of man or the free gift and grace of God Truly it is a very uncomfortable task to be disputing against that grace which yet we must wholly rely upon when we come to die It is one thing what men write while they are in health what cobweb-distinctions they please themselves with in their voluminous writings and another thing when they are in the agonies of death and are to appear at the tribunal of a righteous God It was that which that famous Champion for the grace of God Bradwardine comforted himself with when he undertook the cause of God against Pelagians That he could pray for the grace of God to help him
a mutable creature as is to be shewed Such a determination to good only was in Christ also from his perfection and is likewise in the Angels confirmed and Saints glorified here is no power to sinne yet have they liberty in an eminent degree though determined to good onely On the contrary the Devils and damned men they are necessarily determined to that which is evil they cannot but hate God they are not able to have one good thought or one good desire to all eternity yet all this is done freely by them Now as the determination to good did arise from perfection from the strong principles of holinesse within so in these their necessary determination to evil doth arise from that power of iniquity and sinne they are delivered up unto In this necessity of sinning are all natural men till regenerated absolutely plunged into and that from the dominion which sinne hath over them Onely herein they differ from the Devils and damned men they are in their termino in their journeys end and so are not in a capacity of being ever freed from this necessity and thraldome to sinne There will never be a converted Devil or a converted man in hell their state is unchangeable and they can never be recovered but with wicked men in this life God hath dealt in many plentifull wayes of mercy so that though for the present determined only to evil all the day long though for the present under the chains and bonds of sinne Yet the grace of God may deliver them out of this prison and set them at liberty but till this be they are as the Devils carried out necessarily in all hatred unto God and this determination to one is from imperfection Lastly There is a determination to one from principles of Nature without reason and judgement and where such is there cannot be any liberty for reason and judgement is the root of liberty though it be formally in the will By this then you see That this necessity of sinning doth not take away the natural freedome that is in the will so that a man and a beast should be both alike Luther De Servo Arbit indeed wished that the word Necessity might be laid aside Neither doth Bradwardine like that expression Necessitas immutabilitatis as applied to man but in the sense all that are Orthodox do agree ¶ 8. The second Argument of the Servitude of the Will is its being carried out unto sinne voluntarily and with delight SEcondly This necessity of sinning doth not at all take off from the voluntarinesse and delight therein but every natural man is carried out so voluntarily and readily unto every sinne suggesting it self as if there were no necessity at all Hence man by nature is said To swallow down iniquity like water Job 15. 16 Even as the feavorish or Hydropical man is never satiated with water Therefore the necessity of sinning is never to be opposed to his willingness and freedom for though a man hath no freedom to good yet he hath to evil Eoque magis libera quo magis Ancilla the more he is subject to sinne the more enslaved to it by his delight therein the freer he is to act it We must not then imagine such a necessity of sinning in a man as if that did compel and force a man against his inclination and desire You must not think that it is thus with a man as if he could say O Lord my will is set against sinne I utterly abhorre and detect it but I am necessitated to do it for the will being corrupted doth with all propensity and delight rejoyce in the accomplishing of that which is evil ¶ 9. 3. The Bondage of the Will is evident by its utter impotency to any thing that is Spiritual And wherein that inability consists THirdly This bondage of the will to sinne is evidently manifested in its utter impotency and inability to any thing that is spiritual It 's like Samson that hath lost its strength God made man right whereby he had an ability to do any thing that was holy there could not be an instance in any duty though in the highest degree which Adam had not a power to do and now he is so greatly polluted that there is not the greatest sinne possibly to be committed by the vilest of men but every man hath the seed and root thereof within him for this reason man by nature is not onely compared to the blind and deaf but also to such who are wholly dead in sinne So that as the dead man hath no power to raise himself so neither hath a man who is spiritually dead in his sinnes That this Truth may greatly humble us Let us consider wherein this absolute impotency to what is holy is in every man for this is a great part of the demonstration of our spiritual bondage to sinne and Satan And First Such is the thraldom of the will That a man by nature cannot resist the least temptation to sinne much lesse the greatest without the special grace of God helping at that time We matter not those Pelagian Doctors who hold a man by his own power may resist lesse temptations yea more grievous ones though not continually for when our Saviour teacheth us to pray That we may not be lead into temptation doth not that imply whatsoever is a temptation whether it be small or great if the Lord leave us thereunto we presently are overcome by it Certainly if Adam while retaining his integrity in a temptation and that about so small a matter comparatively for want of actual corroborating grace was overtaken by it Is it any wonder that we who have no inward spiritual principle of holiness within us but are filled with all evil and corruption that we are reeds shaken with every wind The rotten Apple must fall at every blast Know then that it is either sanctifying or restraining grace that keeps thee from every snare of sinne thou meetest with Thou wouldst every hour fall into the mire did not that uphold These Dalilahs would make thee sleep in their laps and then as Jael to Sicera so would they do to thee Herein is our bondage discovered Secondly Our thraldome is manifested In that we are not able of our selves to have one good thought in reference to our eternal salvation But if any serious apprehension if any godly meditation be in thy soul it is the grace of God that doth breath it into thee The wilderness of thy heart cannot bring forth such roses Thus the Apostle We are not able of our selves 2 Cor. 3. 5. to think any thing as of our selves Though the Apostle speaketh it occasionally in his ministerial imployment yet it holdeth generally true of every one of thy self then thy heart is like a noisome dung-hill nothing but unsavoury thoughts doe arise from it but if at any time any good motion any sad and serious thought stirreth within thee know this cometh from without it is put into thee as
thousand of us How much more may we say to God his glory his honour his truth is worth all our estates all our lives yea such ought to be our affections to Gods honour that we ought to preferre it above our own salvation so although through the goodnesse of God his honour and our salvation are so inseparably joyned together that one cannot be parted from the other yet in our mindes we are to esteem of one above the other Gods glory above our own happinesse But the highest degree of grace in this life doth hardly carry a man to this much lesse can nature elevate him thus high The second particular wherein the privacy of our affections is to be lamented is in respect of the publique good we are not onely to preferre the glory of God above our selves but also The publique good of the Church yea the publique good of the Commonwealth above our particular advantages What a notable demonstration of this publique affection do we find in Moses and Paul which may make us ashamed of all our self-affections We have Moses his self-denial mentioned Exod. 32. 32. where he desireth to be blotted out of the book of life then that the sins of the people should destroy them he had rather be undone in his own particular then have the general ruined and when God profered to make him a great name by consuming the Israelites he would not accept of it It was Tullie's boast That he would not accept of immortality it self to the hurt of the publique but this was breath and sound of words only Moses is real and cordial in what he saith As for Paul's publique affections to the salvation of others viz. his kinsmen after the flesh Rom. 9. 3. they break out into such flaming expressions that great are the disputes of the learned about the lawfulness of Paul's wish herein however we find it recorded as a duty that we ought to love our brethren so much that we are to lay down our lives for them 1 Joh. 3. 16. Now how can this ever be performed while these selfish-affections like Pharaoh's lean kine devour all things else Groan then under these streightned and narrow affections of thine thou canst never preferre Jerusalem above all the joy while it is thus with thee SECT XVII The hurtfull Effects of the Affections upon a mans body THirdly The sinfulnesse of our affections naturally is perceived by the hurtfull and destructive effects which they make upon a man Therefore you heard they were called passions These affections immoderately put forth do greatly hasten death and much indispose the body about a comfortable life 2 Cor. 7. 10. The sorrow of the world is said to work death Thus also doth all worldly love all worldly fear and anger they work death in those where they do prevail If Adam had stood they would not have been to his soul as they are to us nor to the body like storms and tempests upon the Sea They would not have been passions or at least not made any corruptive alteration upon a man whereas now they make violent impressions upon the body so that thereby we sinne not onely against our own souls but our own bodies also which the Apostle maketh an aggravation in the guilt of fornication 1 Cor. 6. 18. Instances might be given of the sad and dreadfull effects which inordinate passions have put men upon and never plead that this is the case onely of some few we cannot charge all with this for its only the sanctifying or restraining grace of God that keepeth in these passions of thine should God leave thee to any one affection as well tempered as thou thinkest thy self to be it would be like fire let alone in combustible matter which would presently consume all to ashes of thy own self having nomore strength than thy own and meeting with such temptations as would be like a tempestuous wind to the fire thou wouldst quickly be overwhelmed thereby SECT XVIII The sad Effects they have upon others FOurthly The sinfulness of these affections are seen not only in the sad effect they have upon our selves but what they produce upon others also They are like a thron in the hedge to prick all others that passe by Violent affections do not only disturb those that are led away with them but they do greatly annoy the comfort and peace of others The Prophet complained of living among scorpions and briars and truly such are our affections if not sanctified they are like honey in our gall they imbitter all our comforts all our relations They disturb families Towns yea sometimes whole Nations so unruly are our affections naturally Why is it that the tongue Jam. 2. is such an unruly member that there is a World of evil in it It is because sinfull affections make sinfull tongues SECT XIX They readily receive the Devils Temptations LAstly In that they are so readily receptive of the Devils temptations Herein doth appear the pollution of them The Devil did not more powerfully possess the bodies of some men then he doth the affections of men by nature Are not all those delusions in religious wayes and in superstitious wayes because the Devil is in the affections Hath not the Devil exalted much error and much fals-worship by such who have been very affectionate Many eminent persons for a while in Religion as Tertullian have greatly apostatized from the truth by being too credulous to such women who have great affections in Religion So that it is very sad to consider how greatly our very affections in religious things may be abused how busie the Devil is to tempt such above all into errour because they will do him the more service affections being among other powers of the soul like fire among the elements They are the Chariot-wheels of the soul and therefore the more danger of them if running into a false way The Devil hath his false joy his false sorrow and by these he doth detain many in false and damnable wayes Hence the Scripture observeth the subtilty of the Devils instruments false teachers how busie they are to pervert women as being more affectionate and so the easilier seduced Matth 23. 14. The Pharisees devoured widows houses by their seeming devotions Thus false teachers 1 Tim. 3. 6. did lead captive filly women by which it appeareth how dangerous our affections are what strong impressions Satan can make upon them So that it is hard to say whether the Devils kingdome be more promoted by the subtilty of learned men or the affections of weak men CHAP. VI. The Sinfullnesse of the Imaginative Power of the Soul SECT I. This Text explained and vindicated against D. J. Taylor Grotius the Papists and Socinians GEN. 6. 5. And God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart was only evil and that continually WE have at large discovered the universal pollution of the Affections which we have by nature and handled them in this order though the
Doctrine about the sinfulnesse of the Imaginative power should have preceded because they have such an immediate connexion with the will belonging to the appetitive part of a man The next seat of original sinne in man I shall consider of is the Fancy which we shall find to be instrumental to great iniquities because in it self it is polluted sinfully To which truth this Text will give in a full and pregnant testimony To open which you must understand that we have here related the Cause of that universal and dreadfull judgement which God brought upon the whole world The cause was that universal and desperate wickednesse whereby all flesh had corrupted their wayes The long-suffering of God would bear no longer especially they being so often admonished by Noah the preacher of righteousnesse Thus the general actual impieties every where abounding on the face of the earth is the proxim and immediate cause of drowning of the world Secondly We have the remote and mediate cause which is internal and that is the universal sinfulnesse of every mans heart by nature which is alwayes emptying it self into sinfull thoughts and lusts so that it is never quiet or like a fountain sealed up but diffusing it self into poisonous streams There are always sparks flying out of this furnace Now this natural pollution is described in the most emphatical manner that can be There are some who complain that we are too tragical in explaining the nature of original sinne that we aggravate it too much but if we consider the scope of the holy Ghost in this place we will easily be perswaded that none can say enough in this particular For 1. Here is the heart said to be evil that which is the very life of man and is the fountain of all actions and motions Not the eyes or the tongue but the heart which is the whole of man which implieth also that he sinneth not by example and outward temptation only but from an inward principle 2. In this heart that is said to be evil which we would think is not capable of sinne at least of very little the thoughts not onely the affections or the will the appetitive parts of the soul but the sublime and apprehensive 3. He doth not only say the thoughts but the imagination the very first rising and framing of them It is a Metaphor from the Potter who doth frame his vessels upon a wheel in what shape he pleaseth Thus the heart of man is continually shaping and effigiating some thoughts or other Now these are not onely sinfull when formed and it may be consented unto but the very first fashioning of them even as they rise immediately from the heart are sinfull If we explain it as others do who observe this word signifieth to frame a thing with curious art and industry then it aggravateth likewise informing of us that those thoughts which are polished by us in the most accurate manner they are altogether evil 4. Here is the Vniversality Every Imagination In those millions and millions of thoughts which arise in a man like the motes in the air there is not one good thought all and every imagination 5. Here is not onely the extension of this sinne to every thought but the intention likewise It is onely evil there is no good at all in it Godly men in their best actions have some sinfulnesse adhering to them There is some water in their best wine but here is all drosse and no gold at all only evil Lastly Here is the Aggravation of it from the perpetuity It is thus only evil and that continually Thus the holy Ghost which is truth it self represents our Blackmore natures to humble and debase man as also to justifie God under any effects of his wrath and vengeance that he may bring upon us How wretched then are the attempts of some Writers who lay out the utmost of their power and wit to make this sinne nothing at all as Doctor Taylor and as Papists or to have very little guilt in it If you say This Text speaketh of actual sinnes of evil imaginations I grant it but as flowing from original pollution it speaketh of bitter fruit but as flowing from that bitter root within And 〈…〉 the Scripture use to speak of this sinne commonly as putting it self 〈…〉 immediate evil motions because though original sinne be not peccatum 〈◊〉 yet it is peccatum actuosum as hath been said It is an acting and an active sinne though not actual Pererius would evade this Text by having it to be an hyperbole or else to be true only of some particular wicked men the Gyants in those dayes As for the hyperbole which both Papists and Socinians so often flie unto when the Scripture doth intend to exagerate this sinne we shall easily in time convince of the falshood and vanity of such an exception And as for the second particular we will readily grant That the actual impiety of all men generally was exceedingly heightned so that this gave the occasion to mention that internal corruption which is upon all mankind but yet we must necessarily say that besides those actual impieties original sinne is also aimed at as being the cause of them for the scope of Moses is to give an universal cause of that universal judgement seeing therefore the deluge drowned Infants as well as grown persons and they could not be guilty of actual impieties it remaineth that the native pollution they were born in was the cause of their destruction and indeed original sinne did greatly aggravate those actual wickednesses for hereby was demonstrated the incurableness of their natures No patience no mercy would do them any good for they are not only evil but their hearts the fountain of all was evil likewise and then how could grapes ever grow from such thorns Neither may we limit it as some would to particular great sinners who then lived because Chap. 8. 21. we have the same sentence in effect repeated when yet the wicked men of the world were destroyed when those eight persons onely were alive and preserved God giveth this character of mans nature Besides it is spoken indefinitely the imagination of mans heart not of those men or of such particular men Why this very reason should be used Gen. 8. 21. that God would not destroy the world any more which is in this Text brought for the destruction of it is to be shewed when we come to treat of the effects of original sinne In the mean time Let us consider what a late Writer Doctor Jer. Taylor of Repent Chap. 6. who useth to sharpen his weapons at the Philistims forges the Papists and commonly the worst of them as also the Socinians with whom we reckon Grotius from these I say he delivereth his poisonous assertions First It is pretended That the Scripture maketh this their own fault and not Adam's because vers 12. it is said All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth But This is very feeble
original imputed sinne or of that inherent corruption which we have from our birth and both do admit of great aggravations It is true some Orthodox Writers doe deny the imputation of Adam's actual disobedience unto us as Josua Placeus who bringeth many Arguments Thes Salm. Dis de statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam but my work is not to answer them I suppose it for granted as a necessary truth Concerning Adam's sinne which is thus ours by imputation Bellarmine maketh the Question An sit gravissimum Whether it was the greatest of all sinnes And he concludeth following the Schoolmen that absolutely it is not only respectively Secundum quid in some considerations which he mentioneth Bonaventure saith It is the greatest sinne extensive not intensive But we are to judge of the hainousness of sinne as we see God doth who esteemeth of sinne without any errour Now it is certain there was never any sinne that God punisheth as he doth this The sinne indeed against the holy Ghost in respect of the object matter of it and the inseparable concomitant of unpardonablenesse is greater as to a particular person but this being the sinne of the common nature of mankind doth bring all under the curse of God So that we may on the contrary to Bellarmine say That it is absolutely the highest sinne against God but in some respects it is not I shall be brief in aggravating of that not at all touching upon the other Question which hath more curiosity in it Whether Adam's sinne or Eve's was the greatest then edification Because our proper work is to speak of original inherent sinne yet it is good to affect our souls with the great guilt thereof for some have been ready to expostulate with God Why for such a small sinne as they call it no more then eating the forbidden fruit so many millions of persons even all the posterity of mankind should thereby be made children of wrath and obnoxious to eternal damnation Doth not the Pelagian opinion that holdeth it hurteth none but Adam himself and his posterity onely if they willingly imitate him agree more with the goodnesse of God But if we do seriously consider how much evil was in this one sinne which Tertullian maketh to be a breach of the whole Law of God we will then humble our selves and acknowledge the just hand of God For First This is hainously to be aggravated from the internal qualification of the subject Adam who did thus offend was made upright created in the Image of God In his understanding he had a large measure of light and knowledge For though the Socinians would have him a meer I deot and innocent yet it may easily be evidenced to the contrary The Image of God consisteth in the perfection of the mind as well as in holiness of the other parts of the soul Neither did Elâ—phaz in his discourse with Job apprehend such ignorance in Adam when he saith Art thou the first man was born Wast thou made before the hils Dost thou restrain wisdom to thy self Job 15. 7 8. implying that the first man was made full of knowledge If then Adam had such pure light in his mind this made his sinne the greater yea because of this light some have proceeded so far as to make Adam's sinne the sinne against the holy Ghost but I shall not affirm that Certainly in that Adam had so great knowledge this made his offence the more evil hence because there was no ignorance in his mind nor no passions in the sensitive part at that time to disturb him his sinne was meerly and totally voluntary and the more the will is in a sinne the greater it is Hence Rom. 5. It is called expresly disobedience By one mans disobedience Yea learned men say That this was the proper specifical sinne of Adam eveâ— disobedience For although disobedience be in a large sense in every sinne yet this sinne of Adams was specifically disobedience for God gave him a positive command meerly that thereby Adam should testifie his obedience to him The thing in it self was not intrinsecally evil to eat of the forbidden fruit it was sinfull only because it was forbidden and by this God would have Adam demonstrate his homage to him but in offending he became guilty in a particular way of disobedience Secondly If you consider Adam in his external condition His fin is very great God placed him in Paradise put him into a most happy condition gave him the whole world for his portion Every thing was made for his use and delight now how intolerable was Adams ingratitude for so small a matter to rebell against God Therefore the smalness of the matter of the sinne doth not diminish but aggravate he might the more easily have refused the temptation so that this unthankfulness to God must highly provoke him Thirdly The sinne was an aggregate sinne It had many grievous sins ingredient into it It was a Beelzebub sin a big-bellied sinne full of many sins in the womb of it his sinne was not alone in the external eating of the forbidden fruit but in the internal causes that made him do so There was unbelief which was the foundation of all the other sinfulness he believeth the Devil rather then God There was pride and ambition He desired to be like God There was apostasie from God and communion with him There was the love of the creature more than of God and thereby there was the hatred of God Thus it was unum malum in quo omnia mala as God is unumbonum in quo omnia bona Lastly Not to insist on this because formerly spoken to There was the unspeakable hurt and damage which hereby he brought to his posterity Not to mention the curse upon the ground and every creature The damning of all his posterity in soul and body it the grace of God did not interpose It cannot be rationally conceived but that Adam knew he was a publique person that he was acquainted upon what terms he stood in reference to his posterity That the threatning did belong to all his as well as himself if he did eat of the forbidden fruit Now for Adam to be a murderer of so many souls and bodies to be the cause of temporal spiritual and eternal death to all mankind who can acknowledge but that this sinne is out of measure sinfull ¶ 2. The Aggravation of Original Sinne inherent in us OUr next work is to consider the aggravation of original sinne inherent in us and this is our duty to do that so being sensible of our own contagion we may not flatter our selves in the power of our free-will but fly alone to Christ who is a Phisitian and Saviour even to Infants as well as grown men and the rather we are to be serious and diligent in this because of all those prophane opinions which do either wholly deny it or in a great measure extenuate it Some Papists make it less then a venial sinne and many
many do consent to sinne within their heart which yet do not consent to the outward acting of it sometimes because of the shame that it will bring sometimes because of the punishment that it doth deserve or for some unworthy respect or other not because they fear and love God not because they desire a pure holy heart as well as an unspotted life And truly this is a good discovery of uprightnesse of our hearts when we dare not own sin in our thoughts when the we dare not respect iniquity in our hearts when we labour to keep a pure soul as well as a pure body ¶ 3. More Propositions concerning evil Thoughts and Motions that arise continually from the heart as the Immediate Effect of Original Sinne Shewing how many wayes the Soul may become guilty of sinne about them WE are now to finish this Discourse about that Immediate Effect of original sinne in causing evil thoughts and motions to arise continually from the heart as vapours do constantly from the earth and as they in their first ascension are imperceptible till they come to be congealed into clouds which are plainly visible Thus all sinne while it is but in these motions and stirrings of the heart is difficulty discerned but when it cometh to be formed by express consent and accomplished in outward practice then it is grosse and palpable But to proceed in more Propositions First These motions and stirrings of heart they are either sudden and transitory 〈◊〉 abiding and mansory in the soul Sometimes these sinfull stirrings of the heart are like a sudden whirlwind in the soul that presently vanisheth though they be very troublesom for the time or they come like a flash of lightning and thunder which though terrible yet is but of short continuance now although they make no longer abode in our soul yet they pollute and defile it We are not to give place to them no not for an hour as Paul would not to the false brethren Gal. 2. 5. but we are with holy zeal and indignation to thrust them out and bolt the doors upon them as they did to Thamar Thus in the very twinkling of an eye if we do not watchfully attend thereunto we may destroy our own souls over and over again That is a prophane speech to say Thoughts are free no God hath laid an holy command upon our very thoughts and the first motions and stirrings of our hearts that nothing should arise there but what is agreeable to Gods holy Word When water is in a pure glass though it be moved and shaken often yet no noisom thing ariseth thereby but if in a soul one then the more it is stirred the more filthy are the bubbles thereof Thus in man while enjoying the Image of God whatsoever did move or stir his heart it was altogether holy and pure but since man is thus corrupted there cannot be any motions of his soul but they are wholly defiled and sinfull one way or other Secondly These mansory thoughts which the Schoolmen call morosae because they do morari abide some time in the soul they are likewise divided for they are so continning in us either morâ temporis or morâ consensus as they expresse it Gerson Compend Theol. The continuance of time is when they may for a long while infect sollicit and annoy us but yet we strive and gainsay We do by no means give our consent thereunto as Joseph's Mistress did often importune him yet all that while he kept up the fear of God and would not sinne in that way against him So that although the people of God may be followed from week to week with loathsom and perplexing thoughts yet because they cry unto God they go and pray to him as Hezekiah did upon Rabshakeh's railing and blaspheming of God they are not to be discouraged Thou hast not betrayed thy strength to these Dalilahs all the while Yea from these spiritual exercises and conflicts thou wilt increase thy glory Hereby thou hast an opportunity to discover thy faith thy self emptiness and to get heavenly skill and compassion whereby thou art able to succour those that are in the like manner tempted But then 2. There are thoughts that are continuing morâ consensus and these are farre more dangerous and damnable then the former for if sinfull thoughts and motions arise in thy soul though they are but for a very short time yet if thou hast yeelded to them then thy soul hath committed fornication Consensisti said Austin concubuisti in corde tuo so that the consent to them is farre more dangerous then the length of time they may afflict thee in Any sinfull motion consented unto though it be but for a moment is more destructive then such as follow thee from day to day yea it may be from year to year but thou givest no entertainment to them This is good for the practical Christian to observe it is the long time that troubleth them Oh say they ever since God hath first wrought upon my soul I have been exercised with these thoughts such dreadfull suggestions and to this day I am not yet delivered from them Be of good comfort though it be grievous to thee to feel such things in thy soul yet because withstood they shall not be imputed to thee Those that have the like temptations but for an hour and imbracing of them have more offended God and endangered their own souls Propos 3. It is good to take notice how many wayes the soul may become guilty of sinne about these thoughts and motions within us A truth â—â—â—deed it is that no natural man no civil or formal man doth understand or can be affected with Can a blind man that doth not behold the Sunne see the atoms in the Sun-beams They who are not affected or grieved about great and actual sins will they find these inward motions to be burden If they can swallow a Camel will they not a mote 1. Therefore we come to sinne by these motions and thoughts of soul by the very being of them there The very having of them there is contrary to the Image of God we were first created in As in Heaven there is no unclean thing that can enter so where the Image of God is full and compleat the least vain thought the least sinfull stirring can no more consist with it then darkness with light or as at the first creation we could not have found one weed or thistle on the ground but these came by the curse for sinne so at first in mans soul there would not have appeared the least irregular and inordinate motion of the heart not one thought would have been out of its place Adam was Gods book coming immediately from him wherein no errata could be found but now in stead of wheat come up cockles Now what ever we think we imagine we move to all doth become sinne unto us Oh then let the godly soul mourn and humble it self because such motions are
of this to tender hearts and ears is confutation enough For is not this truly and properly to make God the Author of sinne that he put a rebellious thorn in our sides at first and that because we are his creatures made of a soul and a body therefore we must necessarily be divided within our selves Thus those who charge original sinne with Manichism do herein exceed the Manichees themselves for they attribute this evil in a man to an evil principle but these make the good and holy God to be the Author of this rebellion Neither is it any evasion to say This rebellion of the sensitive part is no sinne unless it be consented unto for it is such which is contrary to the Law of God it is to be resisted and fought against And certainly that demonstrateth the evil nature thereof Luther indeed speaks of a Franciscan which maketh this concupiscence to be a natural good in a man as it is in the fire to burn or the Sunne to shine But certainly such qualities or actions are not to be resisted or fought against as these are How can that be good which is confessed to be a sinne if consented unto ¶ 4. VVHen we say the flesh and the Spirit do thus conflict with one another you must not understand it of them as two naked bare qualities in a man but as actuated and quickned from without For the gracious habit in a man is not able to act and put it self forth vigorously without the Spirit of God exciting and quickning of it And although inherent sinne of it self be active and vigorous yet the Devil also he continually is tempting and blowing upon this fire to make it flame the more impetuously So that we are not to look upon these simply as in themselves but as subservient to the Spirit of God and the Devil The Spirit of God by grace in the heart doth promote the Kingdom of God and the Devil by suggestions doth advance the kingdom of Satan in our hearts So that grace and sinne are like the Deputies and Vicegerents in our souls to those Champions that are without us Now because the Spirit of God is stronger and above the Devil therefore it is that the flesh shall at last surely be conquered Nay if the godly at any time fail if sinne at any time overcome it is not because the Spirit of God could not overcome it but because he is a free agent and communicateth his assistance more or lesse as he pleaseth only in this combat the godly are to assure themselves that they shall overcome all at last that the very root of sinne will be wholly taken away never to trouble or imbitter the soul any more ¶ 5. FIfthly In natural and corrupt men there is no sense or feeling of any such conflict They never groan and mourn under such wrestlings and agonies within them and the reason is because they are altogether flesh and flesh doth not oppose flesh neither is Satan set against Satan It is true there is in some natural vicious men sometimes a combate between their conscience and their appetite their hearts carry them on violently to sinne but their consciences do check them and they feel a remorse within them but this is farre different from that spiritual conflict which the Apostle doth here describe and is to be found only in such men who have the Spirit of God No wonderthen if there be so many who look upon this as a figment if so many even learned men write and speak so ignorantly and advisedly about it for this truth is best acknowledged by experience It 's not the Theologia ratiocinativa but experimentalis as Gerson divideth Divinity that will bring us to a full knowledge of this It cannot then but be expected that you should see men live at ease and have much quietness and security in their own breasts thanking God as if their souls hearts and all were good within them all were as they desire it for the strong man the Devil keepeth all quiet flesh would not oppose flesh It is true one sinne may oppose another covetoufness drunkenness and so a man who would commit them both be divided within himself one sinne draweth one way and another sinne the other way but still in the general here is an agreement all is sinne all tendeth one way still and therefore is not like this combate in the Text but of this more in its time ¶ 6. SIxthly In all regenerate persons though never so highly sanctified there is a conflict more or less It is true some are more holy then others some are babes and some are strong men some are spiritual some in a comparative sence are carnal some are weak some are strong and according to the measure of grace they have received so is this conflict more or less Amyraldus a much admired Writer by some neither do I detract from that worth which is due to him doth industriously set himself Constd cap. 7. ad Rom. to expound the 7th of the Romans of a person not regenerated but in a legal state yet disclaiming Arminianisme and Socinianisme which Exposition being offensive and excepted against as justly it might by William Rivet he maketh a replication thereunto wherein he delivereth many novel assertions Among which this may be one That making four ranks or classes of Christians he apprehendeth the first to be such who have attained to so high a degree of sanctification that they consult and deliberate of nothing but from the habit of grace that is within them and that this conflict within a man is rather to be referred to the legal work upon a man then the Evangelical condition we are put into hence he understands this Text not universally but particularly of the Galathians who were then in that state viz. a legal one not Evangelical which he thinketh the next Verse will confirme where the Apostle saith If ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law now of this sort who may be apprehended ordinarily to live without such a combate he placeth the Apostles especially when plentifully endowed with the Spirit of God after Christs resurrection and for Paul he is so far ravished with the Idea of godliness represented in his life that he saith Consid in cap. 7. ad Rom. cap. 74. if God had pleased so to adorne Paul with the gifts of the Spirit that in this life he should attain to that perfection which other believers have only in heaven none might find fault herein The general rules he goeth upon and others though disclaimed by him is because there are many places of Scripture which shew that some godly persons are victorious and tryumphing above this conflict as when this Apostle saith afterwards ver 24. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof and Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the law of sin
be an occasion to â—ull men a sleep in their lazinesse that hereby they do not content themselves with incompleat and sluggish wishes in the wayes of holinesse If any do abuse this Doctrine to lukewarmness or indulgence in sinfull wayes saying their estate is like Paul's the evil they would not do they do This is not the fault of the Doctrine but either of the Minister who doth not wisely dispense it or of the hearer who doth wilfully suck poison out of the sweet herb Even as the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and Gods grace may be abused to licentiousness It is true that the proper character of Christianity is That it is an acknowledgement of the truth which is after godlinesse Tit. 1. 1. And certainly there is no point may more quicken up to godliness sâ—ur on the most holy to greater growth in piety then this truth about the imperfection of the graces that are in the best and also that we have a treacherous enemy within us the reliques of original sinne which without daily watching and praying will quickly plunge us into confusion Now the Minister of Christ will so handle this Exposition though of a regenerate person very profitably and advantagiously to the increase of godliness if he adde these qualifications to his Interpretation 1. That the evil which this person is said to do is not to be understood of grosse and enormieus crimes but partly of the very motions to sinne within us and sometimes a consent thereunto and it may fall out so as to be an acting of them in our lives but this is not of grosse sinnes or if of a foul sinne yet not continued in but with repentance and greater hatred recovered out of it Unlesse the Preacher do thus limit his Exposition he leaveth the battlements without rails he doth not fence against the pit wherein some may fall Let no man therefore think that this passage of Pauls is to be extended to grosse sinnes as if many prophane sinners who sinne and their consciences check them and then they sinne again and have remorse again could take any comfort from these places as if they might say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me The evil that I would not that I grieve for in the temptation I do Oh take heed of abusing the holy Word of God to such corrupt ends Austin some where speaketh to this occasion when this part of Paul's Epistle was read I fear saith he left this may be ill understood but let none think as if Paul 's meaning was he would be chaste but he was an adulterer he would be mercifull but he was cruel c. Thus it would be very dangerous to interpret this passage of grosse sinnes and yet it cannot be denied but that men who sinne grosly yet with some remorse and grief of conscience are apt to cover themselves with these fig-leaves and think this is sanctuary safe enough to runne unto that though they do sinne yet it is not with full consent and delight Arminius affirmeth in cap. 7. ad Rom. pag. 753. as he saith Verè sanctè That he had sometimes the experience of this that when some have been admonished that they would take heed of committing such a sin which they knew was forbidden by the Law They would answer with the Apostle To will was present with them but they knew not how to perform what they willed Yea he addeth He had this answer from one not when the sinne was committed but when he was forewarned that he should not commit it But the same Author goeth on and saith he knew both men and women young and old who when he had explained this Chapter in the sense he defendeth did plainly confess to him that they hitherto had been in this opinion that if they committed any sinne with reluctancy of their mind or omitted any duty the same regreeting of them they were not greatly to trouble themselves or grieve in this matter seeing they thought themselves like Paul therein and therefore gave him hearty thanks that he delivered him from that errour by his interpretation But what needeth all this if any read Calvins or other Expositions upon this place might they not have been fully satisfied that such persons offending in that manner viz. sinning having only terrour and contradiction from their conscience against the sinne they commit but their hearts otherwise carry them out to it do no wayes agree with the person here described whose heare and will is said to be against sinne as well as his mind and conscience We must not therefore understand it of gross sins especially of a continual custom therein No doubt but David did commit the adultery and murder he would not have done No doubt when Peter denied Christ he could say the evil that he would not do that he did but this was in suddain temptations This was not often or customary therefore they did recover out of them with bitter tears and sorrow We must therefore understand it chiefly of the motions and lustings of the heart to sinne and oftentimes a consenting thereunto yea and in lesser sinnes an acting thereupon so that it is no more in sense then what the Apostle Jam's saith In many things we offend all Chap. 3. 2. So that howsoever the Jesuites and Arminians would make Austins and the later Expositions to differ as if Austins were more innocent because he understood it only of motions to sinne which the godly man did suffer against his will within him but the later apply it even to actions yet who so diligently compareth them together cannot find any real difference for the summe of their Exposition is That the Law requiring such a perfect and pure holiness that is doth not allow of the least spot or blemish the most godly do find themselves so depressed and weighed down with that remainder of corruption that is within them that they come exceeding short of that excellent and perfect holiness and therefore do abhorre and loath themselves and judge themselves miserable while they carry about with them such a body of sinne Secondly and lastly This Exposition will be advantagiously managed for godliness 〈…〉 also inform That Paul doth not here speak of every particular temptation as if in every conflict he had the worse and the flesh had the better but he speaks of good and evil in the general and that in the whole course of his conversation In the general his heart was set upon the good commanded and against the evil forbidden but yet he could never attain to his fulness of desire though in several combars the spirit might and did conquer the flesh And certainly the Arminians who will hold us to the rigid letter as if this person never had he better no not at any time in any sinne must take heed of that fault they charge upon us viz. that they be not injurious to the grace of God even according to their own
that they have Christ but as Adam's sinne was efficacious in men as men quatenus homines to their condemnation so was Christs obedience efficacious for their justification to all men as men This opinion he proveth by an hundred and twenty Reasons and concludeth with excessive confidence of truth on his side that he hath it by the Spirit of God and that though for the present it seemeth not to be approved yet he is confident the whole world will at last entertain it Insomuch that his boastings and presumptions are such that you would think not much learning but much pride had made him mad This man considering the diversity of Sect and Opinions in Religion for two and twenty years wandered up and down to Jews Manumetans Arians and others that having knowledge of all kind of opinions he might at last judge which was the true Religion but this is not the way to find the truth God rather in just judgement leaveth such to errors In this universal road Jacobus Andraas and Hubeâ—ius are said also to go though with some little variation The man foundation they all build up 〈◊〉 is the comparison made by the Apostle Rom. 5. between the first and second Adam wherein the extent of justification to life by Christ seeme 〈◊〉 to be as universal as that of condemnation by Adam the Apostle using the same words of many and all This opinion saith Puccias is most consonant to that 〈◊〉 of God which the Scripture commends and removeeth from God 〈◊〉 all suspicion of cruelty and injustice By this instance we may see there is no stop or bounds can be put to mens errours when once they will judge of Gods love and mercy according to humane compassionate principles And therefore let such who deny original sinne or extenuate it pleading the awe they have in their hearts respectively to God that men may have no hard thoughts of him Let such I say consider whether Puccius and his followers do not farre transcend them in this kind yea whether by their principles they must not necessarily come off to his way For although he doth assert original sinne yet he maketh it wholly taken away by Christs death and that to all mankind so that now we are not born in a state of wrath and enmity against God Secondly There are others that do not receive this opinion of Gods gracious love in Christ to men as they are men but as they are believers that yet affirm The guilt of original sinne wholly taken away by Christ as to all mankind so that no man lieth under this guilt and thereupon conclude That all Infants though of Heathens and Pegans are certainly saved for having no actual sinne and their original being removed the doore is set open for them to enter into Heaven which is afterwards to be considered Thirdly There are yet some who deservedly are reputed as more honourable for learning and orthodoxy then the former who though they hold original sinne and Gods special election of some persons to eternal glory do yet withall maintain a possibility of salvation to every one lying in the corrupt masse of mankind Thus Crocius Duodâ—c Dissert Dissert 1a. de peccato origin although he denieth the Huberian way of assuming all men into a state of favour so that no man is obnoxious to damnation by original sinne yet affirmeth That none is necessarily damned for it without the accession of new sins and that therefore there is a way of possibility of salvation for every one This opinion hath many learned Abettors but if it be throughly pursued it must either fall into the old known orthodox way or empty it self into the Arminian chanel Yea it seemeth to be of so brittle subtilty that it doth not avoid any of those inconvenâ—ercies which they labour to do neither doth it practically give any comfort to a man rationally doubting in his conscience about his interest in Christs death or stirre up and provoke to obedience unto those Commands and Exhortations that are pressed upon us But this Controversie belongeth not so properly to my subject I shall conclude against the former opinions mentioned That by original sinne we are children of Gods wrath yea and for that as well as their actual sinnes some are eternally condemned which Doctrine hath received witness and testimony to its truth from the most eminent Guides and Pastors in Gods Church in all Ages Insomuch that Fulgentius cometh with his Firmissime tene nullatenus dubita c. Believe most firmly and doubt not in the least manner but that every one by nature is obnoxious to the wrath of God that person cannot be saved It is true he addeth without the Sacrament of Baptism of which opinion in its time De incarnatione ad Petrum Diacon The Synod of Dâ—ri also rejecteth the errour of such who teach All men are assumed into a state of reconciliation so that none is either damned or obnoxous to eternal damnation for original sinne but all are free from its guilt which opinion they adde repugneth the Scripture affirming us to be by nature children of wrath Acta Synod Dordrâ—ct cap. 2 de morte Christi reject Erro 5. But let us consider What Arguments are brought to prove this universal removal of the guilt of original sinne from all mankind by Christs death And First They urge the love of God to mankind so often mentioned in the Scripture Insomuch that they say it doth not stand with the 〈◊〉 and mercy of God when man is plunged thus into an undone estate there to leave him and not deliver him out of it But to this many things may be said As First We grant that notwithstanding our original sinne yet God loveth mankind and demonstrateth much mercy to men even because they are his creatures And it must be granted That the Scripture doth often celebrate this mercy of God to man though in a sinfull condition But then we must distinguish between the general love of God and his special love between his love of benevolence and love of complacency as some express it God doth love all mankind with a general love or love of benevolence so as to do good in a liberal manner to them This love of beneficence is demonstrated both to the good and the bad yet this doth not remove the guilt of sinne we may be children of wrath for all this Therefore there is the other special love and grace of God a love of complacency and acceptance of us in Christ and this is only to some of mankind as the Scripture in many places doth shew And yet we must adde that when any are damned we cannot say it is for any defect of Gods particular love and grace as if the fault were to be laid there but upon the original and actual sinfulness of the person so condemned for every mans perdition is of himself Secondly It is no injustice in God if he let men alone in their lost