q Sixthly, That which is hellish and devilish, must needs be sinful; for that is an argument in the Scripture to prove a thing to be exceeding evil: but concupiscence is even the hell of our nature, and lusts are devilish; therefore they are sinful too. "Nemo se palpet," saith St. Austin,' " de suo Satanas est, de Deo beatus :" let no man soothe or flatter himself; his happiness is from God; for of himself he is altogether devilish. Seventhly, That which was with Christ crucified, is 'sin, for he bore our sin in his body upon the tree: but our flesh and concupiscence was with Christ crucified. They "that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts:" therefore it is sin. Lastly, That which is washed away in baptism, is sin; for "baptism is for remission of sins: but concupiscence and the body of sin is done away in baptism: therefore it is sin. And this is the frequent argument of the ancient doctors against the Pelagians, to prove that infants had sin in their nature, because they were baptized unto the remission of sins. To give some answer then to those pretended reasons. To the first we confess, that nothing can be 'toto genere' necessary, and yet sinful; neither is original sin in that sort necessary to the nature in itself; though to the nature, in persons proceeding from Adam, it be necessary for Adam had free-will, and we in him, to have kept that original righteousness in which we were created; and what was to him sinful, was to us likewise, because we all were one in him. We are then to distinguish of natural and necessary; for it is either primitive and created, or consequent and con 91 Pet. ii. 24. r Gal. v. 24. Acts ii. 38. t Col. ii. 11, 12. Rom. vi. 5, 6. • Aug. de peecat. merit. et remis. lib. i. cap. 16, 17. 24. 26. 28. 34, 39. lib. ii. cap. 26, 27, 28. lib. iii. cap. 4. de nupt. et concupiscent. lib. i. cap. 20. lib. ii. cap. 33. cont. Jul. Pelag. lib. iii. cap. 2, 3. lib. vi. cap. 16. et alibi passim. Fulgent. de incarnat. et gratia Christi, cap. 15. Prosper. cont. col. cap. 18. Voluntarium aliquid dicitur, quia est à voluntate. Ab aliquo autem dicitur esse aliquid dupliciter: directe, quod scil. procedit ab aliquo in quantum est agens; indirecte, ex hoc ipso, quod non agit; sicut submersio navis dicitur esse à gubernatore, in quantum desistit à gubernando, &c. Aquin. 1, 2. qu. vi. art. 3. Peccatum originale est voluntarium parvulis, voluntate primi parentis-Quod sufficit ad peccatum originale, quia non est personæ, sed naturæ peccatum. Alvarez de Auxil. Grat. lib. vi. disp. 44. num. 15. tracted necessity. The former would indeed void sin, because God doth never first make things impossible, and then command them; but the latter, growing out of man's own will originally, must not therefore nullify the law of God, because it disableth the power of man; for that were to make man the lord of the law. To the second, three things are to be answered. First, the sinfulness of a thing is grounded on its disproportion to the law of God, not to the will of man. Now God's law sets bounds, and moderates the operations of all other powers and parts, as well as of the will: and therefore the apostle complains of his " sinful concupiscence," even when his will was in a readiness to desire the good, and refuse the evil. Secondly, No evil lust riseth or stirreth, though it prevent the consent of the will, but the will may be esteemed faulty: not in this, that it consented unto it,-but in this, that it did not, as it ought to have done, hinder and suppress it. For the stirrings of lust before the will, is their usurpation and inordinateness, not their nature: which therefore the will, according to that primitive sovereignty, which in man's nature she had, ought to rectify, and order again. Thirdly, Original sin, though to persons it be not, yet to the nature, it was voluntary, and to the persons in Adam, as in their common father: for with them otherwise than in him, no covenant could be made; and, even in human laws, the acts of parents can circumscribe their children. To the third, We utterly deny that God did take away original righteousness from man, but he threw it away himself. God indeed withholds it, and doth not obtrude again that upon us, which we rejected before: but he did not snatch it away; but man, in sinning, did cast it from himself. For what was righteousness in Adam, but a perfect and universal rectitude, whereby the whole man was sweetly ordered by God's law, and within himself? Now Adam's sin having so many evils in it as it had, pride, am Rom. vii. 18. Pontificii ex hac parte sunt novatoribus modestiores, qui Adamum seipsum privasse docent et probant. Andrad. Orthodox. explicat. lib. iii. et Ferrariens. in Tho. cont. gent. lib. iv. cap. 32. Fit in homine justus ordo naturæ, ut anima subdatur Deo, et animæ caro. Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 4. Δικαιοσύνη τετράγωνός ἐστι, καὶ πάντοθεν ἴση καὶ ὁμοία. Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. vi. et Pædagog. lib. i. cap. 13. a bition, ingratitude, robbery, luxury, idolatry, murder, and the like, needs must that sin spoil that original righteousness, which was, and ought to be, universal. Secondly, We grant, that original sin is not only a fault, but a punishment too; but that the one of these should destroy the other, we utterly deny. For which purpose we may note, that a punishment may be either by God inflicted in its whole being; or by man, in the substance of the thing contracted, and by God, in the penal relation which it carries ordered. It is true, no punishment, from God inflicted upon man, can be, in the substance of the thing, sinful; but that which man brings upon himself as a sin, God's wisdom may order to be a punishment too. When a prodigal spends his whole estate upon uncleanness, is not his poverty both a sin and punishment? When a drunkard or adulterer brings diseases upon his body, and drowns his reason, is not that impotency and sottishness both sin and punishment? Did not God punish Pharaoh with hardness of heart, and the Gentiles with vile affections? and yet these were sins as well as punishments. To expedite this point in one word, as I conceive of it, two things are in this sin, privation of God's image, and, lust, or habitual concupiscence. The privation is, in regard of the first loss of righteousness, from Adam alone, by his voluntary depraving of the human nature, and excussion of the image of God: but in regard of the continuance of it, so 'deficienter,' God's justice and wisdom hath a hand in it; - who as he is the most just avenger of wrongs done unto him, and the most free disposer of his own gifts; so hath he, in both respects, been pleased to withhold his image formerly rejected, and not to obtrude upon ungrateful and unworthy men so precious an endowment; of which, the former contempt and indignity had justly made them ever after destitute. Concupiscence we may conceive both as a disorder, and as a penalty. Consider it as a punishment; and so, Sicut cæcitas cordis et peccatum est, quo in Deum non creditur, et poena peccati qua cor superbum dignâ animadversione punitur, et causa peccati, cum mali aliquid cæci cordis errore committitur; ita concupiscentia carnis et peccatum est, quia inest illi inobedientia contra dominatum mentis; et pœna peccati, quia reddita est meritis inobedientis, et causa peccati, defectione consentientis, et contagione nascentis. Aug. cont. Jul. lib. v. cap. 3. though it be not by God effected in nature; (for he tempteth no man, much less doth he corrupt any) yet is it subject to his wisdom and ordination; who after he had been by Adam forsaken, did then forsake him likewise, and give him up into the hand of his own counsel, leaving him to transmit upon others that seminary of uncleanness, which himself had contracted. Consider it as a vice; and so we say, that lust or flesh doth not belong to the parts as such or such parts, but is the disease of the whole nature; either part thereof, though it do not equally descend from Adam, yet may he justly be esteemed the father and fountain of the whole nature; because though generation do not make all the materials and parts of nature, yet doth it work to the uniting of them, and constituting of the whole by them. So then, natural corruption is from Adam alone meritoriously, by reason of his first prevarication; from Adam by our parents seminally, and by generation and contagion. But, under favour, I conceive, that it is not from the body in the soul, but equally and universally from the whole nature, as a guilty, forsaken, and accursed nature, by some secret and ineffable resultancy therefrom, under those relations of guilt and cursedness. This, with submission to the learned, I conceive, in that great question, touching the penalness and traduction of original concupiscence. But to return to those things which are more for practice. This doctrine of original sin doth direct us in our humiliations for sin, shews us whither we should rise in judging and condemning ourselves, even as high as our fleshly lusts, and corrupt nature. "Let not any man say," saith Saint James, "that he was tempted of God." I shall go further, Let not any man say of himself by way of excuse, extenuation, or exoneration of himself, I was tempted of Satan, or of the world. And who can be too hard for such enemies? who can withstand such strong solicitations?— Let not any man resolve his sins into any other original than his own lusts. Our perdition is totally of ourselves: we are assaulted by many enemies; but it is one only • Εννοήσωμεν ἡμῶν τὴν φύσιν· μάθωμέν τινες ἐσμὲν, καὶ ἀρκεῖ τοῦτο εἰς πάσης Takeшoppoσúvns tμîv úæbleσw. Chrysost. ad pop. Antioch. hom. 2. c Jam. i. 13. 4 Οὐ γὰρ ἡ τῶν πειρασμῶν φύσις, ἀλλ' ἡ τῶν πειραζομένων ῥαθυμία τὰ πτώματα épyágeσbai wé¶ukev. Chrysost. ad Pop. Antioch. hom. 4. Saint Paul that overcometh us, even our own flesh. could truly say, "It was no more I that sinned:" but did he charge his sins therefore upon Satan, or upon the world? No, though it was not he, yet it was something that did belong unto him, an inmate, a bosom enemy, even sin that dwelt within him. It is said, that "Satan provoked David to number the people:" and yet David's heart "smote himself," and did not charge Satan with the sin; because it was the lust of his own heart, that let in and gave way to Satan's temptation. If there were the same mind in us as in Christ, that Satan could find no more in us to mingle his temptations withal, than he did in him,-they would be equally successless. But this is his greatest advantage, that he hath our evil nature to help him, and hold intelligence with him. And therefore we must rise as high as that in our humiliations for sin; for that will keep us ever humble, because concupiscence will be ever stirring in us: and it will make us thoroughly humble, because thereby sin is made altogether our own, when we attribute it not to casualties, or accidental miscarriages, but to our nature. As David did, "In sin was I shaped, and in iniquity did my mother conceive me: "It was not any accident, or external temptation which was the root and ground of these my sins, but 'I was a transgressor from the womb:' I had the seeds of adultery and murder sown in my very nature, and from thence did they break forth in my life.-When men shall consider, that in their whole france there is an universal ineptitude and indisposition to any good, and as large a forwardness to all evil; that all their principles are vitiated, and their faculties out of joint; that they are in the womb as cockatrice eggs, and in the conception a seed of vipers, more odious in the pure eyes of God, than toads or serpents are in ours; this will keep men in more caution against sin, and in more humiliation for it. Lastly, From the consideration of this sin, we should be exhorted unto these needful duties: First, To much jealousy against ourselves; not to trust any of our faculties alone; not to be too confident upon presumptions, o." experiences of our .Rom. vii. 20. f 1 Chron. xxi. 1. 2 Sam. xxiv. 103 3 Psal. li. 7. |