Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	death_n	die_v	sin_v	1,960	5	9.3564	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95131	An answer to a letter written by the R.R. the Ld Bp of Rochester. Concerning the chapter of original sin, in the Vnum necessarium. / By Jer. Taylor D.D.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1656 (1656)	Wing T286; Thomason E1683_1; ESTC R209161	32,605	117

to the trial This guilt that is in nature what is it Is it the same thing that was in the person that is is it an obligation to punishment If it be not I know not the meaning of the word and therefore I have nothing to do with it If it be then if this guilt or obligation to punishment remains in the nature after it is taken from the person then if this concupiscence deserve damnation this nature shall be damned though the person be saved Let the Objectors my Lord choose which they will If it does not deserve damnation why do they say it does If it does then the guilty may suffer what they deserve but the innocent or the absolved must not the person then being acquitted and the nature not acquitted the nature shall be damn'd and the person be saved But if it be said that the guilt remains in the nature to certain purposes but not to all then I reply so it does in the person for it is in the person after Baptism so as to be a perpetual possibility and proneness to sin and a principle of trouble and if it be no otherwise in the nature then this distinction is to no purpose if it be otherwise in the nature then it brings damnation to it when it brings none to the Man and then the former argument must return But whether it prevail or no yet I cannot but note that what is here affirmed is expresly against the words commonly attributed to S. Cyprian De ablutione pedum Sic abluit quos parentalis labes infecerat ut nec actualis nec Originalis macula post ablutionem illam ulla sui vestigia derelinquat How this supposing it of Baptism can be reconcil'd with the guilt remaining in the nature I confess I cannot give an account It is expresly against S. Austin Tom. 9. Tract 41. in Johan epist ad Ocean saying deleta est tota iniquitas expresly against S. Hierom Quomodo justificati sumus sanctificati si peccatum aliquid in nobis relinquitur But again My Lord I did suppose that Concupiscence or Original Sin had been founded in nature and had not been a personal but a natural evil I am sure so the Article of our Church affirms it is the fault and corruption of our Nature And so S. Bonaventure affirms in the words cited by your Lordship in your Letter Sicut peccatum actuale tribuitur alicui ratione singularis personae ita peccatum origiuis tribuitur ratione naturae Either then the Sacrament must have effect upon our Nature to purifie that which is vitiated by Concupiscence or else it does no good at all For if the guilt or sin be founded in the nature as the Article affirms and Baptism does not take off the guilt from the nature then it does nothing Now since your Lordship is pleas'd in the behalf of the objectors so warily to avoid what they thought pressing I will take leave to use the advantages it ministers for so the Serpent teaches us where to strike him by his so warily and guiltily defending his head I therefore argue thus Either Baptism does not take off the guilt of Original Sin or else there may be punishment where there is no guilt or else natural death was not it which God threatned as the punishment of Adam's fact For it is certain that all men die as well after baptism as before and more after then before That which would be properly the consequent of this Dilemma is this that when God threatned death to Adam saying On the day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt die the death he inflicted and intended to inflict the evils of a troublesome mortal life For Adam did not die that day but Adam began to be miserable that day to live upon hard labour to eat fruits from an accursed field till he should return to the earth whence he was taken Gen. 3.17 18 19. So that death in the common sense of the word was to be the end of his labour not so much the punishment of the sin For it is probable he should have gone off from the scene of this world to a better though he had not sin'd but if he had not sin'd he should not be so afflicted and he should not have died daily till he had died finally that is till he had returned to his dust whence he was taken and whither he would naturally have gone and it is no new thing in Scripture that miseries and infelicities should be called dying or death Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 1.10 4.10 11 12. 11.23 But I only note this as probable as not being willing to admit what the Socinians answer in this argument who affirm that God threatning death to the Sin of Adam meant death eternal which is certainly not true as we learn from the words of the Apostle saying In Adam we all die which is not true of death eternal but it is true of the miseries and calamities of mankinde and it is true of temporal death in the sense now explicated and in that which is commonly received But I add also this probleme That which would have been had there been no sin and that which remains when the sin or guiltiness is gone is not properly the punishment of the sin But dissolution of the soul and body should have been if Adam had not sin'd for the world would have been too little to have entertain'd those myriads of men which must in all reason have been born from that blessing of Increase and multiply which was given at the first Creation and to have confin'd mankinde to the pleasures of this world in case he had not fallen would have been a punishment of his innocence but however it might have been though God had not been angry and shall still be even when the sin is taken off The proper consequent of this will be that when the Apostle sayes Death came in by sin and that Death is the wages of sin he primarily and literally means the solemnities and causes and infelicities and untimeliness of temporal death and not meerly the dissolution which is directly no evil but an inlet to a better state But I infist not on this but offer it to the consideration of inquisitive and modest persons And now that I may return thither from whence this objection brought me I consider that if any should urge this argument to me Baptism delivers from Original Sin Baptism does not deliver from Concupiscence therefore Concupiscence is not Original Sin I did not know well what to answer I could possibly say something to satisfie the boyes young men at a publique disputation but not to satisfie my self when I am upon my knees and giving an account to God of all my secret and hearty perswasions But I consider that by Concupiscence must be meant either the first inclinations to their object or the proper acts of Election which are the second acts of Concupiscence

If the first inclinations be meant then certainly that cannot be a sin which is natural and which is necessary For I consider that Concupiscence and natural desires are like hunger which while it is natural and necessary is not for the destruction but conservation of man when it goes beyond the limits of nature it is violent and a disease and so is Concupiscence But desires or lustings when they are taken for the natural propensity to their proper object are so far from being a sin that they are the instruments of felicity for this duration and when they grow towards being irregular they may if we please grow instruments of felicity in order to the other duration because they may serve a vertue by being restrained And to desire that to which all men tend naturally is no more a sin then to desire to be happy is a sin desire is no more a sin then joy or sorrow is neither can it be fancied why one passion more then another can be in its whole nature Criminal either all or none are so when any of them growes irregular or inordinate Joy is as bad as Desire and Fear as bad as either But if by Concupiscence we mean the second acts of it that is avoidable consentings and deliberate elections then let it be as much condemned as the Apostle and all the Church after him hath sentenc'd it but then it is not Adam's sin but our own by which we are condemned for it is not his fault that we choose If we choose it is our own if we choose not it is no fault For there is a natural act of the Will as well as of the Understanding and in the choice of the supreme Good and in the first apprehension of its proper object the Will is as natural as any other faculty and the other faculties have degrees of adherence as well as the Will so have the potestative and intellective faculties they are delighted in their best objects But because these only are natural and the will is natural sometimes but not alwaies there it is that a difference can be For I consider if the first Concupiscence be a sin Original Sin for actual it is not and that this is properly personally and inherently our sin by traduction that is if our will be necessitated to sin by Adam's fall as it must needs be if it can sin when it cannot deliberate then there can be no reason told why it is more a sin to will evil then to understand it and how does that which is moral differ from that which is natural for the understanding is first and primely moved by its object and in that motion by nothing else but by God who moves all things and if that which hath nothing else to move it but the object yet is not free it is strange that the will can in any sense be free when it is necessitated by wisdome and by power and by Adam that is from within and from without besides what God and violence do and can do But in this I have not only Scripture and all the reason of the world on my side but the complying sentences of the most eminent writers of the Primitive Church I need not trouble my self with citations of many of them since Calvin lib. 3. Instit c. 3. § 10. confesses that S. Austin hath collected their testimonies and is of their opinion that Concupiscence is not a sin but an infirmity only But I will here set down the words of S. Chrysostome Homil. 13. in epist Rom. because they are very clear Ipsae passiones in se peccatum non sunt Effraenata verò ipsarum immoderantia peccatum operata est Concupiscentia quidem peccatum non est quando verò egressa modum foras eruperit tunc demum adulterium sit non à concupiscentia sed à nimio illicito illius luxu By the way I cannot but wonder why men are pleased where ever they finde the word Concupiscence in the New Testament presently to dream of Original Sin and make that to be the sum total of it whereas Concupiscence if it were the product of Adam's fall is but one small part of it Et ut exempli gratiae unam illarum tractem said S. Chrysostome in the forecited place Concupiscence is but one of the passions and in the utmost extension of the word it can be taken but for one half of the passion for not only all the passions of the Concupiscible faculty can be a principle of sin but the Irascible does more hurt in the world that is more sensual this is more devillish The reason why I note this is because upon this account it will seem that concupiscence is no more to be called a sin then anger is and as S. Paul said Be angry but sin not so he might have said Desire or lust but sin not For there are some lustings and desires without sin as well as some Anger 's and that which is indifferent to vertue and vice cannot of it self be a vice To which I add that if Concupiscence taken for all desires be a sin then so are all the passions of the Irascible faculty Why one more then the other is not to be told but that Anger in the first motions is not a sin appears because it is not alwaies sinful in the second a man may be actually angry and yet really innocent and so he may be lustful and full of desire and yet he may be not only that which is good or he may overcome his desires to that which is bad I have now considered what your Lordship received from others and gave me in charge your self concerning concupiscence Your next charge is concerning Antiquity intimating that although the first antiquity is not clearly against me yet the second is For thus your Lordship is pleased to write their objection I confess I finde not the Fathers so fully and plainly speaking of Original Sin till Pelagius had pudled the stream but after this you may finde S. Jerom c. That the Fathers of the first 400 years did speak plainly and fully of it is so evident as nothing more and I appeal to their testimonies as they are set down in the papers annexed in their proper place and therefore that must needs be one of the little arts by which some men use to escape from the pressure of that authority by which because they would have other men concluded sometimes upon strict inquiry they finde themselves entangled Original Sin as it is at this day commonly explicated was not the Doctrine of the primitive Church but when Pelagius had pudled the stream S. Austin was so angry that he stampt and disturb'd it more and truly my Lord I do not think that the Gentlemen that urg'd against me S. Austin's opinion do well consider that I profess my self to follow those fathers who were before him and whom S. Austin did forsake as I do him in the question