Chapter 8: The State of Corrupted Human Nature

In the last chapter we discovered the Arminian attempt, of readvancing the corrupted nature of man, into that state of innocency and holiness, wherein it was at first, by God created: in which design, because they cannot but discern that the success is not answerable to their desires, and not being able to deny, but that for so much good as we want, having cast it away, or evil of sin that we are subject to, more than we were at our first creation, we must be responsible for to the justice of God; they labor to draw down our first parents, even from the instant of their forming, into the same condition wherein we are engaged by reason of corrupted nature. But truly I fear, they will scarce obtain so prosperous an issue of their endeavor, as Mahomet had, when he promised the people, he would call a mountain to him: which miracle when they assembled to behold, but the mountain would not stir for all his calling, he replied, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain, and away he packed towards it. But we shall find that our Arminians, can neither themselves, climb the high mountain of innocency, nor yet call it down, into the valley of sin and corruption, wherein they are lodged. We have seen already, how vain and frustrate was their former attempt: let us now take a view of their aspiring insolence, in making the pure creatures of God, holy and undefiled with any sin, to be invested with the same wretchedness and perverseness of nature, with our selves.

It is not my intention, to enter into any curious discourse, concerning the state and grace of Adam before his fall: but only to give a faithful assent, to what God himself affirmed of all the works of his hands, they were exceeding good. No evil, no deformity, or any thing tending thereunto, did immediately issue, from that fountain of goodness and wisdom, and therefore doubtless man, the most excellent work of his hands, the greatest glory of his Creator, was then without spot or blemish, endued with all those perfections, his nature, and state of obedience, was capable of. And careful we must be, of casting any aspersions of defect on him, that we will not with equal boldness ascribe to the image of God?

Nothing does more manifest the deviation of our nature, from its first institution, and declare the corruption wherewith we are polluted, than that propensity which is in us to every thing that is evil, that inclination of the flesh, which lusts always against the spirit, that lust and concupiscence, which foments, conceives, hatches, brings forth, and nourishes sin: that perpetual proneness that is in unregenerate nature, to every thing, that is contrary to the pure and holy law of God. Now because neither Scripture nor experience, will suffer Christians quite to deny this pravity of our nature, this averseness from all good, and propensity to sin, the Arminians extenuate it, as much as they are able: affirming that it is no great matter; no more than Adam, was subject to, in the state of innocency. But what? did God create in Adam, a proneness to evil? Was that a part of his glorious image, in whose likeness he was framed? Yes, says Corvinus, by reason of his creation, man had an affection to what was forbidden by the law, but yet this seems injustice, that God should give a man a law to keep, and put upon his nature a repugnancy to that law, as one of them affirmed at the Synod of Dort. No? says the former author: man had not been fit, to have had a law given to him, had he not been endued, with a propension, and natural inclination, to that which is forbidden by the law. But why is this so necessary in men, rather than Angels? No doubt there was a law, a rule, for their obedience, given to them at their first creation, which some transgressed, when others kept it inviolate. Had they also a propensity to sin, concreated with their nature? Had they a natural affection, put upon them by God, to that which was forbidden by the law? Let them only who will be wise, beyond the word of God, affix such injustice on the righteous Judge of all the earth. But so it seems it must be: there was an inclination in man, to sin before the fall, though not altogether so vehement and inordinate as it is now, says Arminius. Hitherto we have thought, that the original righteousness, wherein Adam was created, had comprehended the integrity and perfection of the whole man: not only that whereby the body was obedient to the soul, and all the affections subservient to the rule of reason for the performance of all natural actions: but also a light, uprightness, and holiness of grace, in the mind and will, whereby he was enabled to yield obedience to God, for the attaining of that supernatural end, whereunto he was created. No? but original righteousness, say our new doctors, was nothing but a bridle: to help keep man's inordinate concupiscence within bounds: so that the faculties of our souls, were never endued with any proper innate holiness of their own. In the spiritual death of sin, there are no spiritual gifts properly wanting in the will, because they were never there, say the six Collocutors at the Hague.

The summe is, man was created with a nature, not only weak and imperfect, unable by its native strength, and endowments to attaine that supernatural end, for which he was made, and which he was commanded to seeke, but depraved also, with a love and desire of things repugnant to the will of God, by reason of an inbred inclination to sinning. It does not properly belong to this place, to shew, how they extenuate those gifts also, with which they cannot deny, but that he was indued, and also deny those which he had: as a power to beleeve in Christ, or to assent to any truth, that God should reveale to him: and yet they grant this priviledge, to every one of his posterity, in that depraved condition of nature, whereinto by sinne he cast himselfe and us: we have all now a power of beleeving in Christ, that is, Adam by his fall obtained a supernatural endowment, farre more excellent, then any he had before; and let them not here, pretend the universalitie of the new covenant, untill they can prove it, and I am certaine it will be long enough: but this I say, belongs not to this place. Only let us see, how from the word of God, we may overthrow, the former odious heresie. God in the beginning created man in his owne image (Genesis 1:26), that is, upright (Ecclesiastes 7:29), indued with a nature composed to obedience, and holinesse: that habituall grace, and originall righteousnesse, wherewith he was invested, was in a manner due to him, for the obtaining of that supernatural end, whereunto he was created: an universall rectitude of all the faculties of his soule, advanced by supernatural graces, enabling him to the performance of those duties whereunto they were required, is that which we call the innocency of our first parents: our nature was then enclined to good only, and adorned with all those qualifications, that were necessary, to make it acceptable to God, and able to doe what was required of us by the law, under the condition of everlasting happinesse. Nature, and grace, or originall righteousnesse, before the fall, ought not to be so distinguished, as if the one were a thing prone to evill, resisted and quelled by the other: for both complyed in a sweet union and harmony, to carry us along in the way of obedience, to eternall blessednesse: no contention betweene the flesh and the spirit, but as all other things at theirs, so the whole man joyntly aymed at his own chiefest good: having all means of attaining it in his power: that there was then no inclination to sinne, no concupiscence of that which is evill, no repugnancy to the Law of God, in the pure nature of man: is proved, because.

First, the Scripture describing the condition of our nature, at the first creation thereof, intimates no such propensitie to evill, but rather an holy perfection, quite excluding it: we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), in such a perfect uprightnesse, as is opposite to all evill inventions (Ecclesiastes 7:29), to which image, when we are againe in some measure renewed, by the grace of Christ (Colossians 3:10), we see by the first fruits, that it consisted in righteousnesse and holinesse; in truth and perfect holinesse (Ephesians 4:24).

Secondly, an inclination to evill, and a lusting after that which is forbidden, is that inordinate concupiscence, wherewith our nature is now infected, which is every where in the Scripture condemned as a sinne: Saint Paul in the seventh to the Romans, affirming expressely that it is a sinne, and forbidden by the Law (verse 1), producing all manner of evill, and hindering all that is good: a body of death (verse 24); and Saint James maketh it even the wombe of all iniquitie (James 1:14, 15). Surely, our nature was not at first yoked with such a troublesome inmate; where is the uprightnesse and innocency we have hitherto conceived our first parents to have enjoyed before the fall? A repugnancy to the law must needs be a thing sinfull: an inclination to evill, to a thing forbidden, is an anomie, a deviation, and discrepancy from the pure and holy law of God: we must speake no more then of the state of innocency, but only of a short space, wherein no outward actuall sins, were committed: their proper root, if this be true was concreated with our nature: is this that obedientiall harmony to all the commandements of God, which is necessary for a pure and innocent creature, that has a law prescribed to him? By which of the ten precepts, is this inclination to evill required? Is it by the last, you shall not covet? Or by that summe of them all, you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, &c. Is this all the happinesse of Paradise? To be turmoyled with a nature swelling with aboundance of vaine desires? And with a maine streame carried headlong to all iniquitie, if its violent appetite be not powerfully kept in by the bit and bridle of originall righteousnesse? So it is we see with children now, and so it should have been with them in Paradise, if they were subject to this rebellious inclination to sinne.

Thirdly, and principally, from where had our primitive nature this affections to those things that were forbidden it? This rebellion, & repugnancy to the law, which must needs be an anomie, and so a thing sinful: there was as yet no demerit, to deserve it as a punishment? What fault is it to be created? The operation of any thing which has its original, with the being of the thing it self, must needs proceed from the same cause, as does the essence or being it self: as the fires tending upwards, relates to the same original, with the fire: and therefore this inclination or affection, can have no other Author but God: by which means he is entitled not only to the first sinne, as the efficient cause, but to all the sins in the world, arising from there. Plainly and without any strained consequencies, he is made the author of sinne: for even those positive properties, which can have no other fountaine but the authour of Nature, being set on evill are directly sinful. And here the idol of free-will, may triumph in this victory over the God of heaven: heretofore all the blame of sinne lay upon his shoulders, but now he begins to complaine, [in non-Latin alphabet]: it is God and the fate of our creation, that has placed us in this condition of naturally affecting that which is evill. Back with all your charges, against the ill government of this new deity, within his imaginary dominion: what hurt does he doe, but incline men to evill: and God himself did no lesse, at the first? But let them that will, rejoyce in these blasphemies, it sufficeth us to know, that God created man upright, though he has sought out many inventions: so that in this following dissonancy, we cleave to the better part.

S. S. So God created man in his own image, in the likenesse of God created he him, male and female created he them (Genesis 1:27). Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that made him (Colossians 3:10). — which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse (Ephesians 4:24). Loe this onely have I found, that God has made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions (Ecclesiastes 7:[illegible]9). — By one man sinne entered into the world, and death by sinne (Romans 5:12). Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God, for God tempteth no man, but every one is tempted when he is drawne away of his own lust (James 1:13-14). | Lib. Arbit. There was in man before the fall an inclination to sinning, though not so vehement and inordinate as now it is: Armin. God put upon man a repugnancy to his law: Gesteranus in the Synod. Man by reason of his creation had an affection to those things that are forbidden by the Law: Corvinus. The will of man had never any spirituall endowments: Rem. Apol. It was not fit that man should have a law given him, unlesse he had an naturall inclination to what was forbidden by the Law: Corvinus. |