THE

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE

OF

REPENTANCE.

CHAP. IV.

OF CONCUPISCENCE, AND ORIGINAL SIN; AND WHETHER OR NO, OR HOW FAR, WE ARE BOUND TO REPENT OF

IT.

SECTION I.

ORIGINAL sin is so called xaтaxnorixes, or 'figuratively,' meaning the sin of Adam, which was committed in the original of mankind by our first parent, and which hath influence. upon all his posterity. "Nascuntur non propriè, sed originaliter, peccatores:" so St. Austin"; and therefore St. Ignatius calls it waλalav Suoσébɛiav,' the old impiety°;' that which was in the original or first parent of mankind.

2. This sin brought upon Adam all that God threatened,but no more. A certainty of dying, together with the proper effects and affections of mortality, were inflicted on him; and he was reduced to the condition of his own nature, and then begat sons and daughters in his own likeness, that is, in the proper temper and constitution of mortal men. For as

God was not bound to give what he never promised, viz., an immortal duration and abode in this life; so neither does it appear, in that angry intercourse that God had with Adam, that he took from him or us any of our natural perfections, but his graces only.

3. Man, being left in this state of pure naturals, could not by his own strength arrive to a supernatural end; which was typified in his being cast out of Paradise, and the guarding of it with the flaming sword of a cherub. For eternal life,

n De Civit. lib. 16. c. 18, VOL. IX.

Epist. ad Trallian.

B

being an end above our natural proportion, cannot be acquired by any natural means. Neither Adam nor any of his posterity could, by any actions or holiness, obtain heaven by desert, or by any natural efficiency; for it is a gift still, and it is neque currentis, neque operantis,' neither of him that runneth, nor of him that worketh,' but of God; who freely gives it to such persons, whom he, also by other gifts and graces, hath disposed towards the reception of it.

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4. What gifts and graces, or supernatural endowments, God gave to Adam in his state of innocence, we know not; God hath no where told us; and of things unrevealed we commonly make wild conjectures. But, after his fall, we find no sign of any thing but of a common man. And therefore, as it was with him, so it is with us; our nature cannot go to heaven, without the helps of the divine grace; so neither could his and whether he had them or no, it is certain we have; receiving more by the second Adam than we did lose by the first and the sons of God are now spiritual, which he never was, that we can find.

5. But concerning the sin of Adam, tragical things are spoken; it destroyed his original righteousness, and lost it to us for ever; it corrupted his nature, and corrupted ours; and brought upon him, and not him only, but on us also, who thought of no such thing,-an inevitable necessity of sinning, making it as natural to us to sin as to be hungry, or to be sick and die; and the consequent of these things is saddest of all; we are born enemies of God, sons of wrath, and heirs of eternal damnation.

6. In the meditation of these sad stories, I shall separate the certain from the uncertain, that which is revealed from that which is presumed, that which is reasonable from that which makes too bold reflections upon God's honour, and the reputation of his justice and his goodness. I shall do it in the words of the apostle, from whence men commonly dispute in this question, right or wrong, according as it happens.

7. "By one man sin came into the world "." That sin entered into the world by Adam, is therefore certain, because he was the first man; and unless he had never sinned, it must needs enter by him; for it comes in first by the first; "and

P Rom. v. 12.

death by sin," that is, death which, at first, was the condition of nature, became a punishment upon that account; just as it was to the serpent to creep upon his belly, and to the woman to be subject to her husband: these things were so before, and would have been so; for the Apostle pressing the duty of subjection, gives two reasons why the woman was to obey. One of them only was derived from this sin, the other was the prerogative of creation; for " Adam was first formed, then Eve";" so that before her fall, she was to have been subject to her husband, because she was later in being; she was a minor, and therefore under subjection; she was also the weaker vessel. But it had not been a curse; and if any of them had been hindered by grace and favour, by God's anger they were now left to fall back to the condition of their nature.

8. "Death passed upon all men;" that is, upon all the old world, who were drowned in the flood of the divine vengeance; and who did sin after the similitude of Adam. And therefore St. Paul adds that for the reason: "Inasmuch as all men have sinned." If all men have sinned upon their own account (as it is certain they have), then these words can very well mean, that Adam first sinned, and all his sons and daughters sinned after him, and so died in their own sin, by a death which, at first and in the whole constitution of affairs, is natural, and a death which their own sins deserved, but yet, which was hastened or ascertained upon them the rather for the sin of their progenitor. Sin propagated upon that root and vicious example; or rather from that beginning, not from that cause, but" dum ita peccant, et similiter moriuntur," "if they sin so, then so shall they die:" so St. Jerome.

9. But this is not thought sufficient; and men do usually affirm that we are formally and properly made sinners by Adam, and in him we all by interpretation sinned, and there. fore think these words ἐφ ̓ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον, “ forasmuch as all men have sinned," ought to be expounded thus, Death passed upon all men, in whom all men have sinned;' meaning, that in Adam we really sinned, and God does truly and justly impute his sin to us, to make us as guilty as he that

4 1 Tim. ii. 13.

did it, and as much punished, and liable to eternal damnation. And all the great force of this fancy relies upon this exposition of iq', to signify" in him."

10. Concerning which there will be the less need of a laborious inquiry; if it be observed, that the words being read, "forasmuch as all men have sinned," bear a fair and clear discourse, and very intelligible; if it be rendered "in him," it is violent and hard, a distinct period by itself, with out dependance or proper purpose, against the faith of all copies, who do not make this a distinct period, and against the usual manner of speaking. 2. This phrase of qis used in 2 Cor. v. 4. 'Ep' & où Déhoμev indúcaodai, “Not for that we would be unclothed;" and so it is used in Polybius, Suidas, and Varinus. 'Ep', that is, "eâ conditione," for that cause or condition; and iq' wapeĩ," ad quid ades," are the words of the Gospel, as Suidas quotes them. 3. Although 'may signify the same with iv, in whom,' or in him,' yet it is so very seldom or infrequent, that it were intolerable to do violence to this place to force it to an unnatural signification. 4. If it did always signify the same with iv, or in him,' which it does not; yet we might very well follow the same reading we now do, and which the Apostle's discourse does infer; for even év does divers times signify, 'forasmuch' or 'for that,' as is to be seen in Rom. viii. 3. and Heb. ii. 18. But, 5. supposing all that can be, and that it did signify " in whom," yet the sense were fair enough, as to the whole article; for by him,' or in him, we are made sinners,' that is, brought to an evil state of things usually consequent to sinners: we are used like sinners, by him,' or in him;' just as when a sinner is justified, he is treated like a righteous person, as if he had never sinned, though he really did sin oftentimes; and this for his sake who is made righteousness to us: so "in Adam we are made sinners," that is, treated ill and afflicted, though ourselves be innocent of that sin, which was the occasion of our being used so severely for other sins, of which we were not innocent. But how this came to pass, is told in the following words.

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11. "For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not

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sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." By which discourse it appears, that St. Paul does not speak of all mankind, as if the evil occasioned by Adam's sin did descend for ever upon that account; but it had a limited effect, and reached only to those who were in the interval between Adam and Moses. This death was brought upon them by Adam; that is, death, which was threatened to Adam only, went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners, but not after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is, who sinned not so capitally as he did. For to sin like Adam, is used as a tragical and a high expression. So it is in the Prophet; they like men have transgressed';' so we read it ;-but in the Hebrew it is, they like Adam have transgressed,' and yet death passed upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam; for Abel, and Seth, and Abraham, and all the patriarchs, died, Enoch only excepted; and therefore it was no wonder, that, upon the sin of Adam, death entered upon the world, who generally sinned like Adam, since it passed on and reigned upon less sinners. It reigned upon them, whose sins therefore would not be so imputed as Adam's was; because there was no law with an express threatening given to them as was to Adam; but although it was not wholly imputed upon their own account, yet it was imputed upon theirs and Adam's. For God was so exasperated with mankind, that being angry he would still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners, which he only had first threatened to Adam: and so Adam brought it upon them. They indeed, in rigour, did themselves deserve it; but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam, they who sinned not so bad, and had not been so severely and expressly threatened, had not suffered so severely. The case is this. Jonathan and Michal were Saul's children; it came to pass that seven of Saul's issue were to be hanged, all equally innocent, equally culpable. David took the five sons of Michal, for she had left him unhandsomely. Jonathan was his friend, and therefore he spared his son Mephibosheth. Here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons, whether David should take the sons of Michal, or of Jonathan; but it is likely that as, upon the kindness which David had to Jonathan, he spared his son,