so what was wanting in their former estate might be supply'd by them in their following one For as it is not easie to suppose that the corruptible body should so far stupefie the Soul as to hinder it from emerging in time out of sleep in which it may seem to have been cast and accordingly from calling to mind what had been before transacted within it Because though the Body may be some hindrance to the faculties of the Soul yet it doth not hinder them from coming in time to exert their proper operations So it is much less easie to suppose that God should not however bring to it's memory its past State and Actions by which it offended against him Partly to make it sensible of its former guilt and God's choosing to punish it by thrusting it into a Body and partly to make it so much the more careful to break off from those sins by which it had before offended him These as they are the only imaginable ends why God should thrust an offending Soul into such a Body so being perfectly lost to that Soul in which there is no consciousness of it's former state and of those enormities which were contracted in it I conclude therefore that whatever may be said as to this particular concerning Original Sin yet it did not take its rise from the evil acts or habits of the Soul in any praexistent estate and nothing therefore left to us to resolve it into but the depravedness of those from whom we all descended and from whom it is transmitted to particular Souls and Persons I deny not indeed that even this Account is not without its difficulties and such as it will be hard if not impossible perfectly to assoile I deny not farther that those difficulties are much enhanc'd by the ignorance we are under concerning the Original of humane Souls and which whilst we continue under it will not be easie for us to shew how that depravedness of Nature should pass from them to us But as those difficulties are no ways comparable to the difficulties of two of the former even those which resolve Original Sin into the malignity of some evil spirit or the pravity of matter So they can much less be thought to be of force against the testimony of the Scripture if that as I shall afterwards shew favour its arising from the pravity of our first Parents Partly because the thing in question is a matter of fact and therefore to be determin'd rather by testimony than the force of reason and partly because the testimony of Scripture is the most Authentick one as being no other than the testimony of God. Now that there wants not sufficient evidence from thence that that Original Sin whereof we speak ariseth from the pravity of those from whom we first descended will appear if these three things can be made out First that the sin of all mankind enter'd in by Adam Secondly that it enter'd in by Adam not meerly as the first that committed it or tempted other Men by his ill example to do the like but as more or less the cause of all their sins by his own Thirdly that he became the cause of all their sins through his by depraving thereby his own Nature and then communicating that depravation to those that descended from him That the Sin of all Mankind enter'd in by Adam will need no other proof than that known Text of S. Paul (p) Rom. 5.12 even that by one Man sin enter'd into the World and death by sin and so death passed through unto all Men for that all have sinned For as we cannot well interpret the word sin of any other than the sin of all Men because there is nothing in the Text to limit it to any particular Man's so much less when S. Paul doth afterwards affirm that that death which enter'd in by it passed thorough unto all Men for that or because all had sinned by the means of him That as it makes death to pass upon all Men with respect to their several sins and consequently their several sins to be the immediate door by which it enters so making those several sins therefore to be included in that sin which he before affirmed to be the cause of that death and together with it to have enter'd in by Adam But because among those at least by whom the Scripture is acknowledg'd the question is not so much whether all sin enter'd by Adam but after what manner it enter'd by him And because till that be known we cannot speak with any certainty concerning the derivation of the corruptness of our Natures from that of our first Parents or Parent Therefore pass we on to shew according to the method before laid down that as the sin of all Mankind enter'd in by Adam so it enter'd in by him not as some have vainly deem'd meerly as one who first committed it or tempted others by his example to do the like but as one also yea especially who by the malignant influence of his sin was more or less the cause of all those sins that followed it That the sin of all Mankind enter'd not in by Adam either meerly or principally as one who first committed it will need no other proof than his being not the first committer of sin even in this sublunary World but that Serpent who tempted our first Parents to it For as he and his fellow Angels sinned before them in those glorious seats in which they were first bestow'd So he sinned also before them here by that temptation which he suggested to them and without which they had not fallen from their integrity Which as it is an evidence of sin 's not entring in by Adam in that sense and consequently that that was not the sense intended by S. Paul So is the more to be considered because S. John attributes this entrance of sin to the Devil (q) 1 Joh. 3.8 yea makes all the committers of sin to be therefore of him But besides that Adam was not the first of those that sinned and we therefore not so to understand S. Paul when describing sin as entring by him Neither was he the first of humane kind that sinned which will be a yet farther prejudice to the former surmise For as we learn from the story of the Fall (r) Gen. 3.6 yea from this very Apostle elsewhere (Å¿) 1 Tim. 2.14 Adam was not deceiv'd that is to say was not the first that was so but the Woman being deceiv'd was in the transgression Which what is it but to say that sin did not enter in by Adam in that sense and consequently that that was not the sense intended by the Apostle in it Only if it be said and more than that cannot be said in it that we are not so to understand S. Paul when describing sin as entring by Adam as not also to suppose him to connote the Partner both of his Bed and of his transgression As I
the things affirmed Nothing more being required to the understanding of the one than a due consideration of the signification of the words wherein they are expressed whereas to the right ordering of the other there is requir'd a due understanding of the Nature of those things about which we reason which is both a matter of far greater difficulty and in many cases impossible to be attain'd Whatever difficulty therefore there may be in apprehending how Original Sin could have the consent of those in whom it is supposed to be and consequently how it should be truly and properly a sin Yet ought not that to be a bar against our belief of it if the Scripture hath represented it as such and which whether it hath or no I shall leave to be judg'd by what I have before observ'd from it From such Objections as are level'd more immediately against the being of Original Sin pass we to those which impugne the derivation of it from Adam and from whom we have affirmed it to proceed Which Objections again do either tend to shew that it had its Original from something else or that it cannot be suppos'd to have its Original from Adam An opinion hath prevail'd of late years that that which we call Original Sin took its rise from the sins of particular Souls in some praexistent estate and from those evil habits which they contracted by them And certainly the opinion were reasonable enough to be embrac'd if the praexistence of Souls were but as well prov'd as it is speciously contriv'd For that suppos'd it would be no hard matter to give an account of the rise of that Corruption which is in us nor yet of God's afflicting those on whom no other blame appears That corruption as it is no other than what particular Souls have themselves contracted so making them as obnoxious to the vengeance of God as any after sins can be supposed to do But do they who advance this hypothesis think the plausibleness thereof a sufficient ground to build it on Or are problems in Divinity no other way to be determin'd than those of Astronomy or other such conjectural Arts are I had thought that for the resolution of these we ought rather to have had recourse to that word of God which was design'd to give us an understanding of them to have examin'd the several assertions of it and acquiesced in them how difficult soever to be apprehended I had thought that we ought to have done so much more where the Scripture professeth to deliver its opinion and doth not only not wave the thing in question but speaks to it Which that it doth in the present case will need no other proof than the account it gives of the Original of Mankind and then of the Original of Evil. For as it professeth to speak of Adam not only as created by God but as appointed by him (r) Gen. 1.28 to give being by the way of natural Generation to all that after him should replenish the Earth which how he should be thought to do if he were only to be a means of furnishing them with a Body who had the better part of their being before is past my understanding to imagine so it professeth to speak of the same Adam as one by whom sin and death (Å¿) Rom. 5.12 1 Cor. 15.21 22. enter'd into the World as well as the persons of those on whom it seizeth And can there then be any place for a precarious hypothesis about the Original of Mankind or the evils of it Can there be place for advancing that hypothesis not only beside but against the determinations of the Scripture Do not all such hypotheses proceed upon the uncertainty of the matter about which they are conversant Do they not come in as a relief to the understandings of Men where they cannot be satisfied any other way But how then can there be place for such a one where the Scripture hath determin'd How can there be any place even for the most specious and plausible For as that cannot be suppos'd to be uncertain which the Scripture hath determin'd So no plausibility whatsoever can come in competition with the determinations of God such as those of the Scripture are But such it seems is the restlesness of some Men's minds that if they cannot satisfie their scruples from what the Scripture hath advanced they will be setting up other Hypotheses to do it by Wherein yet they are for the most part so unlucky as to advance such things themselves as have nothing at all of probability in them For who can think it any way probable that if mens Souls had an existence antecedent to their conception in the Womb they should not in the least be conscious of it nor of any of those things which were transacted by them in it Is it as one hath observ'd who seems to have been the first broacher of it in this latter Age is it I say for want of opportunity of being reminded of their former transactions as it happens to many who rise confident that they slept without dreaming and yet before they go to bed again recover a whole series of representations by something that occurr'd to them in the day But who can think when the Souls of Men must be supposed to carry in them the same evil tendencies and inclinations that they should never light upon any one thing which might bring back to their minds what they had formerly transacted or but so much as that they had a being antecedent to their present one For whoever was so forgetful of his dreams as not to remember he was sometime in a dreaming condition yea that he actually dreamed in it Is it secondly as the same Learned Man goes on by a desuetude of thinking of their former actions and whereby it sometimes comes to pass as he there observes that what we have earnestly meditated labour'd for and pen'd down with our own hands when we were at School becomes so lost to our memories that if we did not see our own handwriting to it we should not acknowledge it to be our own But doth this come home to the present case Doth it persuade such a forgetfulness in the Souls of Men as not only not to remember their particular actions but not so much as that they were in a condition to act any thing or acted any thing under it For though a Man may forget the particular exercise he did at School yet can any Man though he slept an Age and never so much as dream'd in all that time of being at School or any other thing be supposed if he awoke in his right wits to forget he was sometime in such a place and performed some exercises in it Is it lastly by means of some distemper that happens to the Soul by coming into an earthly Body and by which the foremention'd person conceives the Soul may suffer in its memory as we see it sometime doth in its
it More particularly where he affirmeth that both Jews and Gentiles (h) Rom. 3.9 are all under sin That though the former may seem of all others to have been most free from it yet the Law (i) Rom. 19. had not stuck to affirm that ther was none (k) Rom. 10 c. righteous even among them no not one That there was none that understood none that sought after God That they were all gone out of the way they were altogether become unprofitable that there was none that did good no not one In fine that all the World must thereby (l) Rom. 19. be look'd upon as guilty before God because as he afterward (m) Rom. 23. speaks all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But so the same Scripture did long before declare with an addition of all Men's being under a perpetual course of sin as well as in some measure tainted with it It being not only the voice of God concerning that part of Mankind that liv'd before the flood that every imagination (n) Gen. 6.5 of the thought of their heart was only evil continually but alike intimated by him concerning that part which was to follow even to the end of the World. For affirming as he doth (o) Gen. 8.21 that he would not any more drown the World because the imagination of Man's heart is evil from his youth he both supposeth that Mankind would again give occasion to it by their evil imaginations as without which otherwise there could be no occasion for God's suspending it and that Mankind would do so also in every individual and Generation of it The former because he speaks of the imaginations of Mankind in the general and which are therefore to be extended to all the individuals of it The latter because if any Generation of Men were likely to be free from those imaginations there would so far forth have been no need of his declaring that he would not drown the World because no ground for bringing it on the Inhabitants thereof But therefore as we have reason to believe from the places before recited that the World always was and will be under sin yea under a constant course of it So we shall be yet more confirmed in it if we compare the latter place with the former as the likeness that is between them will oblige us to do There being not a more apt sense of that latter Speech of God than that he would not again drown the Earth because he knew the imaginations of Men would be as evil as they had before been and he therefore if he were dispos'd to take that vengeance to bring a flood often upon it to the no profit of those that inhabited it as well as to the defacing of the Earth it self Which will make the condition of Man to be so sinful that it cannot be otherwise unless by some powerful means delivered from it 2. But so also may we inferr from thence which was the second thing to be prov'd that all Men are under sin from the time they begin to be in a capacity to offend That as it affirms the imagination of Men's heart to be evil so to be evil from their Youth and as I should therefore think from the time they begin to be in a capacity to be guilty of it Not that that Age to which we are wont to give the denomination of Youth is the first wherein Mankind begins to be in a capacity to offend for there is but too much evidence of that in the riper years of Childhood but that we cannot well understand that Text of any other youthful Period than that wherein Mankind begins to be in a capacity to reason and consequently also to offend Partly because the word we render Youth is sometime us'd even for infancy (p) Judges 13.7 Exod. 2.6 and ought not therefore without manifest reason to be removed too far from it But more especially because it is the manifest design of God in the place we speak of to aggravate the evil of Men's imaginations from the earliness thereof and that earliness therefore to be carried as high as the capacity Men are in to imagine evil will suffer the doing of it 3. Now as nothing therefore can be wanting toward the proof of Original Corruption than that they who are so universally and so early under sin are so also from an inward principle and such an inward principle too as was derived to them from their birth so we shall not it may be need any other proof of that than their being so universally and early under the other The former of these perswading Men's being under sin from some inward principle the latter from such an inward principle as is deriv'd to them from their Birth That I make Men's being so universally under sin an argument of their being so from some inward principle is because as so general an effect must be supposed to have some general Cause so no external Cause how general soever can be supposed to produce it without the assistance of the other As will appear if we consider the force of example and which as it is the most general and the most effectual external Cause that can be assign'd so is that into which they who deny the Corruption of Nature are wont to resolve the universality of sin For neither first is even Example of so great force as infallibly and universally to draw Men to the imitation of it For some Men are Vertuous even when they have an ill example before them and others as Vitious where they have a good Neither secondly hath it any force but what it receives from Men's aptness to imitate those with whom they converse Which as it will make it necessary for us to have recourse to an inward principle even for those effects which are produc'd by the mediation of example so make our very aptness to imitate the evil examples of others a branch of that inward principle which we affirm to be the cause of so universal an impiety Only because we are yet upon Scripture proofs and which the more express they are so much the more convictive Therefore I shall yet more particularly endeavour to evince from thence that as all Men are under sin so they are so by an innate principle But so S. Paul gives us clearly enough to understand because both asserting such a principle and that all actual sins are the issues of it The former where he represents even the Man who was under the conviction of the Law and who therefore might be suppos'd to be most free from the contagion of sin as Carnal yea sold under it (q) Rom. 7.14 as one who had sin dwelling in him for so he affirms no less than twice (r) Rom. 17.20 and as one too who had a law in his members (Å¿) Rom. 23 that warred against the law of his mind or as he afterwards entitles