Chapter 7: The Nature of Man and Conversion

Herod the great imparting his counsel of rebuilding the Temple to the Jews, they much feared, he would never be able to accomplish his intention; but like an unwise builder having demolished the old, before he had sat down and cast up his account, whether he were able to erect a new, they should (by his project) be deprived of a Temple: therefore to satisfy their jealousies, he resolved as he took down any part of the other, presently to erect a portion of the new in the place thereof. Right so the Arminians, determining to demolish the building of divine providence, grace, and favor, by which men have hitherto ascended into heaven, and fearing lest we should be troubled, finding ourselves on a sudden deprived of that wherein we reposed our confidence for happiness, they have by degrees erected a Babylonish Tower in the room thereof, whose top they would persuade us shall reach to heaven: First therefore the foundation stones they bring forth, crying hail, hail, to them, and pitch them on the sandy rotten ground, of our own natures. Now because heretofore, some wise master-builders, had discovered this ground, to be very unfit to be the basis of such a lofty erection, by reason of a corrupt issue of blood and filth, arising in the midst thereof, and over-spreading the whole platform: to encourage men to an association in this desperate attempt, they proclaim to all, that there is no such evil fountain in the plain which they have chosen, for the foundation of their proud building, setting up itself against the knowledge of God in plain terms, having rejected the providence of God, from being the original of that goodness of entity which is in our actions, and his predestination, from being the cause of that moral and spiritual goodness wherewith any of them are clothed, they endeavor to draw the praise of both, to the rectitude of their nature, and the strength of their own endeavors: but this attempt in the latter case, being thought to be altogether vain, because of the disability and corruption of nature, by reason of original sin propagated to us all by our first parents, whereby it is become wholly void of integrity and holiness, and we all become wise and able to do evil, but to do good have no power, no understanding; therefore they utterly reject this imputation of an inherent original guilt, and demerit of punishment, as an enemy to our upright and well deserving condition: and Oh, that they were as able, to root it out of the hearts of all men, that it should never more be there, as they have been to persuade the heads of divers, that it was never there at all.

If any would know, how considerable this article concerning original sin, has ever been accounted in the Church of Christ, let him but consult the writings of Saint Augustine, Prosper, Hilary, Fulgentius, any of those learned fathers, whom God stirred up to resist, and enabled to overcome, the spreading Pelagian heresy, or look on those many councils, edicts, decrees of emperors, wherein that heretical doctrine, of denying this original corruption, is condemned, cursed, and exploded; now among those many motives they had to proceed so severely against this heresy one especially inculcated deserves our consideration, namely:

That it overthrew the necessity of Christ's coming into the world to redeem mankind: it is sin only that makes a Savior necessary, and shall Christians tolerate such an error, as by direct consequence, infers the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to be needless. My purpose for the present, is not to allege any testimonies of this kind, but holding myself close to my first intention, to show how far in this article as well as others, the Arminians have apostatized, from the pure doctrine of the word of God, the consent of orthodox divines, and the confession of this Church of England.

In the ninth article of our church, which is concerning original sin, I observe especially four things: First, that it is an inherent evil, the fault and corruption of the nature of every man: Secondly, that it is a thing not subject, or conformable to the Law of God: but has in itself, even after baptism, the nature of sin: Thirdly, that by it, we are averse from God and inclined to all manner of evil: Fourthly, that it deserves God's wrath and damnation, all which are frequently, and evidently taught in the word of God, and every one denied by the Arminians, as it may appear by these instances, in some of them.

First, That it is an inherent sin and pollution of nature, having a proper guilt of its own, making us responsible to the wrath of God: and not a bare imputation of another's fault, to us his posterity, which because it would reflect upon us all with a charge of a native imbecility and insufficiency to good, is by these self-idolizers, quite exploded.

Infants are simply in that estate, in which Adam was, before his fall, says Venator. Neither is it at all considerable, whether they be the children of believers, or of heathens and infidels: for infants, as infants have all the same innocency, say they, jointly in their Apology. Yes, more plainly, it can be no fault wherewith we are born: in which last expression, these bold innovators, with one dash of their pens, have quite overthrown a sacred verity, an Apostolic Catholic fundamental article, of Christian religion: but truly to me, there are no stronger arguments of the sinful corruption of our nature, then to see, such nefarious issues of unsanctified hearts: let us look then to the word of God confounding this Babylonish design.

First, That the nature of man, which at first was created pure and holy, after the image of God, endowed with such a rectitude and righteousness, as was necessary and due to it, to bring it to that supernatural end to which it was ordained, is now altogether corrupted and become abominable, sinful and averse from goodness, and that this corruption or concupiscence is originally inherent in us, and derived from our first parents, is plentifully delivered in holy writ, as that which chiefly compels us to a self-denial, and drives us to Christ.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, says David (Psalm 51:5).

Where for the praise of God's goodness towards him, he begins with the confession of his native perverseness, and of the sin wherein he was wrapped before he was born: neither was this peculiar to him alone, he had it not, from the particular iniquity of his next progenitors, but by an ordinary propagation from the common parent of us all: though in some of us, Satan by this Pelagian attempt; by hiding the disease has made it almost incurable. For even those infants, of whose innocency the Arminians boast, are unclean in the verdict of Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 7:14), if not sanctified by an interest in the promise of the Covenant, and no unclean thing shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. The weakness of the members of infants is innocent, and not their souls: they want nothing, but that the members of their bodies are not as yet ready instruments of sin. They are not sinful only by an external denomination, accounted so, because of the imputation of Adam's actual transgression to them: for they have all an uncleanness in them by nature (Job 14:4), from which they must be cleansed, by the washing of water and the word (Ephesians 5:20). Their whole nature is overspread with such a pollution, as is proper only to sin inherent, and does not accompany sin imputed, as we may see in the example of our Savior, who was pure, immaculate, holy, undefiled, and yet the iniquity of us all was imputed to him. Hence are those phrases of washing away sin (Acts 22:16), of cleansing filth (1 Peter 3:21; Titus 3:5). Something there is in them, as soon as they are born, excluding them from the kingdom of heaven, for except they also be born again of the Spirit they shall not enter into it (John 3:5).

Secondly, the opposition that is made between the righteousness of Christ, and the sin of Adam (Romans 5), which is the proper seat of this doctrine, shows that there is in our nature an inbred sinful corruption, for the sin of Adam holds such relation to sinners, proceeding from him by natural propagation, as the righteousness of Christ does to them, who are born again of him by spiritual regeneration. But we are truly intrinsically and inherently sanctified, by the Spirit and grace of Christ: and therefore there is no reason, why being so often in this chapter called sinners, because of this original sin, we should cast it off, as if we were concerned only by an external denomination, for the right institution of the comparison, and its analogy quite overthrows the solitary imputation.

Thirdly, all those places of Scripture, which assert the proneness of our nature to all evil, and the utter disability that is in us to do any good, that wretched opposition to the power of godliness, wherewith from the womb we are replenished, confirms the same truth: but of these places, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Fourthly, the flesh, in the Scripture phrase, is a quality (if I may so say) inherent in us: for that, with its concupiscence, is opposed to the Spirit and his holiness, which is certainly inherent in us. Now the whole man by nature is flesh: for that which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). It is an inhabiting thing, a thing that dwells within us (Romans 7:17). In brief this vitiosity, sinfulness, and corruption of our nature, is laid open: first, by all those places, which cast an aspersion of guilt, or desert of punishment, or of pollution, on nature itself: as Ephesians 2:1, 2, 3 — we are dead in trespasses and sins, being by nature children of wrath, as well as others, being wholly encompassed by a sin that does easily beset us. Secondly, by them, which fix this original pravity, in the heart, will, mind, and understanding: Ephesians 4:18; Romans 12:2; Genesis 6:5. Thirdly, by those which positively decipher this natural depravation (1 Corinthians 2:14; Romans 8:7), or fourthly, that place it in the flesh, or whole man (Romans 6:6; Galatians 5:16). So that it is not a bare imputation of another's fault, but an intrinsical adjacent corruption of our nature itself, that we call by this name of original sin. But alas, it seems we are too large carvers for ourselves, in that wherewith we will not be contented: the Arminians deny all such imputation, as too heavy a charge, for the pure unblameable condition, wherein they are brought into this world; they deny, I say, that they are guilty of Adam's sin, as sinning in him, or that his sin is any way imputed to us, which is their second assault, upon the truth of this article of faith.

Adam sinned in his own proper person, and there is no reason, why God should impute that sin of his, to infants: says Boreus. The nature of the first Covenant, the right and power of God, the comparison instituted by the Apostle, between Adam and Christ, the divine constitution whereby Adam was appointed to be the head, fountain and origin of all humane kind, are with him, no reasons at all, to persuade it. For it is against equity, says their Apologie, that one should be counted guilty for a sin that is not his own, that he should be reputed nocent, who in regard of his own will is truly innocent. And here Christian Reader, behold plain Pelagianism obtruded on us, without either welt or guard: men on a sudden made pure and truly innocent, notwithstanding all that natural pollution and corruption, the Scripture every where proclaims them to be replenished withal. Neither is the reason they intimate, of any value, that their wills assented not to it, and which a little before they plainly urge. It is say they against the nature of sin: that, that, should be counted a sin, or be imputed, as a sin, to any, by whose own proper will: it was not committed: which being all they have to say, they repeat it over and over, in this case; it must be voluntary, or it is no sin. But I say this is of no force at all: for first, Saint John in his most exact definition of sin, requires not voluntariness to the nature of it, but only an obliquity, a deviation from the rule, it is an anomie, a discrepancy from the Law; which whether voluntary or no, it skills not much. But sure enough, there is in our nature such a repugnancy, to the Law of God. So that secondly, if originally we are free from a voluntary actual transgression, yet we are not, from an habitual voluntary digression, and exorbitancy from the Law. But thirdly, in respect of our wills, we are not thus innocent neither, for we all sinned in Adam, as the Apostle affirms. Now all sin is voluntary say the Remonstrants, and therefore Adam's transgression, was our voluntary sin also; and that in divers respects. First, in that his voluntary act is imputed to us, as ours, by reason of the covenant which was made with him on our behalf. But because this consisting in an imputation, must needs be extrinsical to us; therefore secondly, we say, that Adam being the root, and head of all humane kind, and we all branches from that root, all parts of that body, whereof he was the head, his will may be said to be ours, we were then all that one man, we were all in him, and had no other will but his; so that though that be extrinsical to us, considered as particular persons, yet it is intrinsical, as we are all parts of one common nature. As in him we sinned, so in him we had a will of sinning. Thirdly, original sin, is a defect of nature, and not of this, or that, particular person, whereon Alvarez grounds this difference, of actual, and original sin, that the one is always committed by the proper will of the sinner, to the other, is required only the will of our first parent, who was the head of humane nature.

Fourthly, it is hereditary natural, and no way involuntary or put into us against our wills, it possesses our wills, and inclines us to voluntary sins.

I see no reason then, why Corvinus should affirme as he does: that it is absurd, that by one mans disobedience, many should be made actually disobedient: unless he did it purposely to contradict Saint Paul, teaching us, that by one mans disobedience, many were made sinners (Romans 5:19). Paulus ait, Corvinus negat, eligite cui credatis: choose whom you will beleeve; Saint Paul, or the Arminians: the summe of their indeavour in this particular, is to cleare the nature of man, from being any way guiltie of Adams actuall sin; as being then in him, a member and part of that body whereof he was the head: or from being obnoxious to an imputation of it, by reason of that Covenant which God made with us all in him: so that denying as you saw before, all inherent corruption and pravitie of nature, and now all participation by any means of Adams transgression, me thinks they cast a great aspersion on Almighty God, however he dealt with Adam for his own particular, yet for casting us, his most innocent posteritie out of Paradise. It seemes a hard case, that having no obliquitie or sinne in our nature to deserve it, nor no interest in his disobedience, whose obedience had been the means of conveying so much happinesse to us: we should yet be involved in so great a punishment, as we are. For that we are not now by birth, under a great curse and punishment, they shall never be able to perswade any poore soul who ever heard of Paradise, or the garden where God first placed Adam: and though all the rest, in their judgement be no great matter, but an infirmitie and languor of nature or some such thing: yet what ever it be, they confesse it lights on us, as well as him. We confesse (say they) that the sinne of Adam, may be thus farre said to be imputed to his posteritie, inasmuch as God would have them all, borne obnoxious to that punishment, which Adam incurred by his sinne: or permitted that evill, which was inflicted on him, to descend on them. Now be this punishment what it will, never so small, yet if we have no demerit of our own, nor interest in Adams sinne, it is such an act of injustice, as we must reject from the most holy, with a God forbid: farre be it from the Judge of all the world to punish the righteous with the ungodly. If God should impute the sinne of Adam to us, and thereon pronounce us obnoxious to the curse deserved by it: if we have a pure, sinlesse, unspotted nature, even this, could scarse be reconciled with that rule, of his proceeding in justice, with the sonnes of men, the soule that sinneth it shall die: which clearely granteth an impunity to all not tainted with sinne. Sinne and punishment, though they are sometimes separated by his mercy, pardoning the one, and so not inflicting the other, yet never by his justice, inflicting the latter, where the former is not. Sinne imputed, by it selfe alone without an inherent guilt, was never punished in any, but Christ: the unsearchablenesse of Gods love and justice, in laying the iniquitie of us all upon him, who had no sinne, is an exception from that generall rule he walketh by, in his dealing with the posteritie of Adam: so that if punishment bee not due to us, for a solely imputed sinne, much lesse, when it does not stand with the justice and equitie of God, to impute any iniquity to us at all, can we justly be wrapped in such a curse and punishment, as wofull experience teacheth us, that we lye under. Now in this act of injustice wherewith they charge the Almightie, the Arminians place the whole nature of originall sin. We account, not say they, originall sin, for a sin properly so called, that should make the posteritie of Adam to deserve the wrath of God, nor for an evill, that may properly be called a punishment: but only for an infirmitie of nature. Which they interpret to be a kinde of evill, that being inflicted on Adam, God suffereth to descend upon his posteritie: so all the depravation of nature, the pollution, guilt, and concupiscence, we derive from our first parents: the imputation of Adams actuall transgression, is all streightned to a small infirmitie, inflicted on poore innocent creatures.

But let them enjoy their own wisdome, which is earthly, sensuall and devillish: the Scripture is cleare, that the sinne of Adam, is the sinne of us all, not only by propagation and communication, (whereby not his singular fault, but something of the same nature, is derived to us) but also by an imputation of his actuall transgression to us all. His singular disobedience being by this means made ours: the grounds of this imputation I touched before, which may be all reduced to his being a common person and head of all our nature, which investeth us, with a double interest in his demerits, while so he was: 1. as we were then in him and parts of him: 2. as he sustained the place of our whole nature, in the Covenant God made with him, both of which even according to the exigence of Gods justice, require that his transgression, be also accounted ours. And Saint Paul is plaine not only, that by one mans offence, many were made sinners (Romans 5:19), by the derivation of a corrupted nature; but also that by one mans offence judgement came upon all (verse 18), even for his one sinne, all of us, are accounted to have deserved judgement and condemnation; and therefore (verse 12) he affirmeth, that by one man, sinne and death entred upon all the world: and that because we have all sinned in him: which we no otherwise doe, but that his transgression, in Gods estimation is accounted ours. And the opposition the Apostle there maketh, between Christ and his righteousnesse, and Adam and his disobedience does sufficiently evince it: as may appeare by this figure Sicut sic ex Adamo Christo in omnes [illegible] redundavit, eis [illegible] per unum [illegible] Adami, [illegible] Christi. The whole similitude chiefly consists, in the imputation of Adams sinne, and Christs righteousnesse, to the seed of the one by nature, and of the other by grace: but that we are counted righteous, for the righteousnes of Christ, is among Protestants, (though some differ in the manner of their expressions) as yet without question: and therefore are no lesse undoubtedly accounted sinners by, or guilty of the first sinne of Adam.

I shall not shew their opposition to the truth in many more particulars, concerning this Article of original sin: having been long ago most excellently prevented even in this very method, by the way of Antithesis to the Scripture, and the orthodox doctrine of our Church, by the famously learned Master Reynolds, in his excellent Treatise Of the Sinfulness of Sin: where he has discovered their errors, fully answered their sophistical objections, and invincibly confirmed the truth from the word of God: only as I have shewed already, how they make this we call original sin, no sin at all, neither inherent in us, nor imputed to us, nor no punishment truly so called; so because our Church says directly, that it merits damnation, I will briefly shew, what they conceive, to be the desert thereof.

First, for Adam himself, they affirm, that the death threatened to him, if he transgressed the Covenant, and due to him for it, was neither death temporal, for that before he was subject to, by the primary constitution of his nature: nor yet such an eternal death, as is accompanied with damnation, or everlasting punishment. No? Why then let us here learn some new divinity? Christians have hitherto believed, that whatever may be comprised under the name of death: together with its antecedents, consequents, and attendants was threatened to Adam, in this commination: and Divines until this day, can find but these two sorts of death in the Scripture, as penal to men, and properly so called: and shall we now be persuaded that it was neither of these that was threatened to Adam? It must be so, if we will believe the Arminians: it was neither the one, nor the other, of the former: but whereas he was created mortal and subject to a temporal death, the sanction of his obedience, was a threatening of the utter dissolution of his soul and body, or a reduction to their primitive nothing: but what if a man will not here take them at their words, but believe according to Saint Paul, that death entered by sin; that if we had never sinned, we had never died, that man in the state of innocency was by God's constitution, free even from temporal death, and all things directly conducing thereunto. Secondly, that this death threatened to our first parents, comprehended damnation also of soul and body for evermore, and that of their imaginary dissolution, there is not the least intimation in the word of God: why I confess they have impudence enough in divers places to beg that we would believe their assertions, but never confidence enough, to venture once to prove them true. Now they who make so slight of the desert of this sin, in Adam himself, will surely scarce allow it to have any ill merit at all, in his posterity.

Whether ever any one were damned, for original sin, and adjudged to everlasting torments; is deservedly doubted of: yes, we doubt not to affirm, that never any was so damned, says Corvinus: and that this is not his sole opinion, he declares, by telling you no less of his Master Arminius: It is most true, says he, that Arminius teaches, that it is perversely said, that original sin makes a man guilty of death. Of any death it should seem, temporal, eternal, or that annihilation they dream of: and he said true enough, Arminius does affirm it, adding this reason, because it is only the punishment of Adam's actual sin: now what kind of punishment they make this to be I shewed you before. But truly I wonder, seeing they are everywhere so peremptory, that the same thing cannot be a sin, and a punishment; why they do so often nick-name this infirmity of nature, and call it a sin, which they suppose to be as far different from it, as fire from water: is it because they are unwilling, by new naming it, to contradict Saint Paul in express terms, never proposing it, under any other denomination? Or if they can get a sophistical elusion for him, is it lest by so doing, Christians should the more plainly discern their heresy? Or whatever other cause it be, in this I am sure they contradict themselves, notwithstanding in this they agree full well, that God rejects none, for original sin only, as Episcopius speaks: and here if you tell them that the question is not de facto, what God does; but de iure, what such sin deserves, they tell us plainly that God will not destinate any infants to eternal punishment for original sin, without their own proper actual sins, neither can he do so, by right, or in justice: so that the children of Turks, Pagans, and the like Infidels, strangers from the covenant of grace departing in their infancy, are far happier than any Christian men, who must undergo a hard warfare, against sin, and Satan, in danger to fall finally away at the last hour; and through many difficulties, entering the kingdom of heaven, when they without further trouble are presently assumed there, for their innocency. Yes, although they are neither elected of God; for as they affirm, he chooses none but for their faith which they have not: nor redeemed by Christ, for he died only for sinners, he saved his people from their sins, which they are not guilty of, nor sanctified by the Holy Ghost, all whose operations they restrain to a moral suasion, whereof infants are not a capable subject. Which is not much to the honor of the blessed Trinity: that heaven should be replenished with them whom the Father never elected, the Son never redeemed, nor the Holy Ghost sanctified.

And thus you see, what they make, of this original pravity of our nature, at most an infirmity, or languor thereof: neither a sin, nor the punishment of sin properly so called: nor yet a thing that deserves punishment as a sin. Which last assertion, whether it be agreeable to holy Scripture or no, these two following observations will declare.

First, there is no confusion, no disorder, no vanity in the whole world, in any of God's creatures, that is not a punishment of our sin in Adam. That great and almost universal ruin of Nature, proceeding from the curse of God overgrowing the earth, and the wrath of God, revealing itself from heaven, is the proper issue of his transgression. It was of the great mercy of God, that the whole frame of Nature, was not presently rolled up in darkness, and reduced to its primitive confusion. Had we ourselves, been deprived of those remaining sparks of God's image in our souls, which vindicates us from the number, of the beasts that perish, had we been all born fools, and void of reason, by dealing so, with some in particular, he shows us, it had been but justice to have wrapped us in the same misery, all in general: all things when God first created them, were exceeding good, and thought so by the wisdom of God himself: but our sin, even compelled that good and wise Creator, to hate, and curse the work of his own hands. Cursed is the ground, says he to Adam, for your sake, in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you (Genesis 3:17, 18). Hence was that heavy burden of vanity, that bondage of corruption, under which to this day the whole creation groans, and travails in pain until it be delivered (Romans 8:21, 22). Now if our sin, had such a strange malignant influence, upon those things, which have no relation to us, but only as they were created for our use; surely it is of the great mercy of God that we ourselves are not quite confounded: which does not yet so interpose itself, but that we are all compassed, with divers sad effects of this iniquity, lying actually, under divers pressing miseries, and deservedly obnoxious to everlasting destruction: so that,

Secondly, death temporal, with all its antecedents, and attendants, all infirmities, miseries, sicknesses, wasting destroying passions, casualties that are penal, all evil conducing thereunto, or waiting on it, is a punishment of original sin: and this not only, because the first actual sin of Adam, is imputed to us: but most of them, are the proper issues of that native corruption, and pollution of sin, which is stirring and operative within us, for the production of such sad effects, our whole nature being by it thoroughly defiled. Hence are all the distortions, and distemperatures of the soul, by lusts, concupiscence, passions, blindness of mind, perverseness of will; inordinateness of affections, wherewith we are pressed, and turmoiled: even proper issues of that inherent sin, which possesses our whole souls.

Upon the body also, it has such an influence, in disposing it to corruption and mortality, as it the original of all those infirmities, sicknesses and diseases, which make us nothing but a shop of such miseries: for death itself, as these and the like degrees, are the steps which lead us on apace, in the road that tends to it: so they are the direct internal efficient cause thereof, in subordination, to the justice of Almighty God by such means, inflicting it as a punishment of our sins in Adam. Man before his fall, though not in regard of the matter whereof he was made, nor yet merely in respect of his quickening form, yet in regard of God's ordination was immortal, a keeper of his own everlastingness. Death, to which before he was not obnoxious, was threatened as a punishment of his sin: In the day, you eat thereof, you shall surely die: the exposition of which words, given by God, at the time of his inflicting this punishment, and pronouncing man subject to mortality, clearly shows that it comprehends temporal death also, dust you are, and to dust you shall return: our return to dust, is nothing but the soul's leaving the body, whereby before it was preserved from corruption. Further Saint Paul opposes that death, we had by the sin of Adam, to the resurrection of the body, by the power of Christ: for since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection from the dead, For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:21, 22). The life, which all shall receive by the power of Christ at the last day, is essentially a reunion of soul and body, and therefore their separation is a thing we incurred by the sin of Adam. The same Apostle also (Romans 5) describes a universal reign of death over all, by reason of the first transgression: even diseases also in the Scripture are attributed to sin, as their meritorious cause (John 5:14; 1 Corinthians 11:30; Revelation 2:22). And in respect of all these, the mercy of God, does not so interpose itself, but that all the sons of men are in some sort partakers of them.

Thirdly, the final desert of original sin, as our article speaks, is damnation: the wrath of God to be poured on us, in eternal torments of body and soul. To this end also many previous judgments of God, are subservient: as the privation of original righteousness, which he took, and withheld, upon Adam's throwing it away: spiritual desertion, permission of sin, with all other destroying depravations of our nature, as far as they are merely penal: some of which, are immediate consequents of Adam's singular actual transgression, as privation of original righteousness, others as damnation itself, the proper effects of that derived sin and pollution, that is in us. There is none damned, but for their own sin: when divines affirm that by Adam's sin we are guilty of damnation, they do not mean, that any are actually damned for his particular fact, but that by his sin, and our sinning in him, by God's most just ordination, we have contracted that exceeding pravity, and sinfulness of nature, which deserves the curse of God, and eternal damnation. It must be an inherent uncleanness that actually excludes out of the kingdom of heaven (Revelation 21:27), which uncleanness the Apostle shows, to be in infants not sanctified, by an interest in the Covenant. In brief, we are baptized to the remission of sin, that we may be saved (Acts 2:38); that then which is taken away by baptism, is that which hinders our salvation, which is not, the first sin of Adam imputed, but our own inherent lust and pollution. We cannot be washed, and cleansed, and purged from an imputed sin, which is done by the laver of regeneration, from that which lies upon us, only by an external denomination, we have no need of cleansing. We may be said, to be freed from it, or justified, but not purged. The soul then that is guilty of sin shall die, and that for its own guilt: if God should condemn us for original sin only, it were not by reason of the imputation of Adam's fault, but of the iniquity of that portion of nature, in which we are proprietaries.

Now here to shut up all, observe, that in this inquiry, of the desert of original sin: the question is not, What shall be the certain lot, of those that depart this life, under the guilt of this sin only? But what this hereditary and native corruption does deserve, in all those in whom it is: for as Saint Paul says, we judge not them that are without (especially infants) (1 Corinthians 5:13). But for the demerit of it in the justice of God, our Savior expressly affirms, that unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3), and let them that can, distinguish between a not going to heaven, and a going to hell: a third receptacle of souls in the Scripture we find not. Saint Paul also tells us, that by nature we are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), even originally and actually, we are guilty of, and obnoxious to that wrath, which is accompanied with fiery indignation, that shall consume the adversaries. Again, we are assured that no unclean thing shall enter into heaven (Revelation 21), with which hell-deserving uncleanness children are polluted, and therefore unless it be purged with the blood of Christ, they have no interest in everlasting happiness. By this means sin is come upon all to condemnation, and yet do we not peremptorily censure to hell, all infants departing this world without the laver of regeneration, the ordinary means of waving the punishment, due to this pollution: that is the question de facto, which we before rejected. Yes, and two ways there are, whereby God saves such infants, snatching them like brands out of the fire.

First, by interesting them into the Covenant, if their immediate, or remote parents have been believers: he is a God of them, and of their seed: extending his mercy to a thousand generations of them that fear him.

Secondly, by his grace of election, which is most free and not tied to any conditions, by which I make no doubt, but God takes many to him in Christ, whose parents never knew, or had been despisers of the Gospel: and this is the doctrine of our Church, agreeable to the Scripture, affirming the desert of original sin, to be God's wrath and damnation, to both which how opposite is the Arminian doctrine may thus appear.

S. S. By the offence of one man judgment came upon all to condemnation (Romans 5:18). By one man's disobedience many were made sinners (verse 19). Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me (Psalm 51:5). — else were your children unclean, but now they are holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one (Job 14:4). Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). We were by nature the children of wrath even as others (Ephesians 2:3). By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: to wit, in him (Romans 5:12). For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18). In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die (Genesis 2:17). For as in Adam all die, so (1 Corinthians 15:22). By nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defiles (Revelation 21:27). | Lib. Arbit. Adam sinned in his own proper person only, and there is no reason, why God should impute that sin to infants: Borraeus. It is absurd that by one man's disobedience, many should be made actually disobedient: Corvinus. Infants are simply in that estate in which Adam was before his fall: Venator. Neither is it considerable whether they be the children of believers, or of heathens, for all infants have the same innocency: Rem. Apol. That which we have by birth can be no evil of sin, because to be born is plainly involuntary: Idem. Original sin, is neither a sin properly so called which should make the posterity of Adam, guilty of God's wrath, nor yet a punishment of any sin on them: Rem. Apol. It is against equity that one should be accounted guilty of a sin, that is not his own, that he should be judged nocent, who in regard of his own will is truly innocent. God neither does, nor can in justice, appoint any to hell, for original sin: Rem. Apol. It is perversely spoken that original sin makes any one guilty of death: Armin. We no way doubt to affirm that never any one was damned for original sin: Corvinus. |