face, are apprehensive and afflicted with that evil state of things, whither their infelicity, not their fault, hath carried them. 25. II. But suppose this to be but a mere privative state, yet it cannot be inflicted upon infants as a punishment of Adam's sin; and upon the same account it cannot be inflicted upon any one else. Not upon infants, because they are not capable of a law for themselves; therefore, much less of a law which was given to another, here being a double incapacity of obedience. They cannot receive any law; and if they could, yet of this they never were offered any notice, till it was too late. Now if infants be not capable of this, nor chargeable with it, then no man is; for all are infants first; and if it comes not first by birth, and at first, it cannot come at all. So that although this privative hell be less than to say they are tormented in flames besides, yet it is as unequal and unjust. There is not, indeed, the same cruelty, but there is the same injustice. I deny not but all persons naturally are so, that they cannot arrive at heaven; but unless some other principle be put into them, or some great grace done for them, must for ever stand separate from seeing the face of God. But this is but accidentally occasioned by the sin of Adam. That left us in our natural state, and that state can never come to heaven in its own strength. But this condition of all men by nature is not the punishment of our sin; for this would suppose, that were it not for this sin superinduced, otherwise we should go to heaven. Now this is not true; for if Adam had not sinned, yet without something supernatural, some grace and gift, we could never go to heaven. Now although the sin of Adam left him in his nakedness, and a mere natural man; yet presently this was supplied, and we were never in it, but were improved and bettered by the promise, and Christ hath died for mankind, and in so doing is become our Redeemer and representative; and therefore this sin of Adam cannot call us back from that state of good things, into which we are put by the mercies of God in our Lord Jesus; and, therefore, now no infant or idiot, or man'or woman, shall, for this alone, be condemned to an eternal banishment from the sweetest presence of God.. But this will be evinced more certainly in the following periods. For if they stand for ever banished from the presence of God, then they shall be for ever shut up in hell, with the devil and his angels; for the Scripture hath mentioned no portions but of the right and left hand. Gregory Nazianzen and his scholiast Nicetas did suppose, that there should be a middle state between heaven and hell for infants and heathens; and concerning infants, Pope Innocent III. and some schoolmen have taken it up: but' St. Austin hath sufficiently confuted it; and it is sufficient that there is no ground for it but their own dreams. 26. III. But then against those that say, the flames of hell are the portion of Adam's heirs, and that infants, dying in original sin, are eternally tormented, as Judas, or Dives, or Julian,-I call to witness all the economy of the divine goodness, and justice, and truth. "The soul that sins it, shall die; as I live, saith the Lord, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father";" that is, he shall not be guilty of his crime, nor liable to his punishment. 27. IV. Is hell so easy a pain, or are the souls of children of so cheap, so contemptible a price, that God should so easily throw them into hell? God's goodness, which pardons many sins which we could avoid, will not so easily throw them into hell for what they could not avoid. God's goodness is against this. 28. V. It is supposed that Adam did not finally perish for that sin, which himself committed; all antiquity thought so; Tatianus only excepted, who was a heretic accounted, and the father of the Encratites. But, then, what equity is it that any innocents or little children should? for either God pardoned Adam or condemned him. If he pardoned him that sinned, it is not so agreeable to his goodness to exact it of others that did not ". For if he pardoned him, then either God took off all that to which he was liable, or only removed it from him to place it somewhere else. If he removed it from him to his posterity, that is it which we complain of as contrary to his justice and his goodness. But if God took off all that was due, how could God exact it of others, it being wholly pardoned? But if God did not pardon him the eternal guilt, but took the forfeiture and made him pay k Ambros. Catharinus, Albert. Pighius. De Verb. Apost. serm. 14. m Ezek. xviii. n Ex tarditate si Dii sontes prætereant, et insontes plectant, justitiam suam non sic rectè resarciunt. the full price of his sin, that is, all which he did threaten and intend,―then it is not to be supposed that God should, in justice, demand more than eternal pains as the price to be paid by one man for one sin. So that in all senses this seems unjust. 29. VI. To be born, was a thing wholly involuntary and unchosen, and therefore it could in no sense be chosen, that we were born so; that is, born guilty of Adam's sin, which we knew not of, which was done so many thousand years before we were born; which we had never heard of, if God had not been pleased by a supernatural way to reveal to us, which the greatest part of mankind to this day have never heard of; at which we were displeased as soon as we knew of it; which hath caused much trouble to us, but never tempted us with any pleasure. 30. VII. No man can perish for that, of which he was not guilty; but we could not be involved in the guilt, unless some way or other our consent had been involved. For it is no matter who sins, or who is innocent, if he, that is innocent, may perish for what another does without his knowledge or leave, either asked, or given, or presumed. But if our consent was in it, then either it was included naturally, or by an express will of God that made it so. It can no way be imagined how our will can be naturally included, for we had no natural being. We had no life, and therefore no action, and therefore no consent. For it is impossible there should be an act of will in any sense, when there is an act of understanding in no sense. But if by a divine act or decree it became so, and not by our act, then we only are said to consent, because God would have it so; which, if we speak intelligibly, is to charge God with making us guilty when we were not; to say, we consented when we did not. 31. VIII. In pursuance of which argument, I consider, that whatsoever can be said to consent, must have a being either in or out of its causes. But our will was not in being or actual existence, when Adam sinned; it was then in its causes. But the soul, and so the will of man hath no cause but God, it being with the soul immediately created. If therefore we sinned, we could not sin in ourselves, for we were not born; nor could we sin in Adam, for he was not the cause of our will; it must therefore be that we sinned in God: for as was our being, so must our action be; but our being was then only in God, our will and our soul were in him only, 'tanquam in suâ causâ,' therefore in him was our action, or consent, or what we please to call it. Which affirmative, what sense, or what piety, or what probability, it can have in it, I suppose, needs not much inquiry. 32. IX. To condemn infants to hell for the fault of another, is to deal worse with them, than God did to the very devils, who did not perish but for an act of their own most perfect choice. 33. X. This, besides the formality of injustice and cruelty, does add and suppose a circumstance of a strange ungentle contrivance. For because it cannot be supposed that God should damn infants or innocents without cause, it finds out this way, that God, to bring his purposes to pass, should create a guilt for them, or bring them into an inevitable condition of being guilty by a way of his inventing. For if he did make any such agreement with Adam, he beforehand knew that Adam would forfeit all, and, therefore that unavoidably all his posterity should be surprised. This is to make pretences, and to invent justifications and reasons of his proceedings, which indeed are all one as if they were not. For he that can make a reason for an action otherwise unjust, can do it without any reason; especially when the reason itself makes the misery as fatal as a decree without a reason: and if God cannot be supposed to damn infants without just cause, and therefore he so ordered it that a cause should not be wanting, but he infallibly and irresistibly made them guilty of Adam's sin; is not this to resolve to make them miserable, and then with scorn to triumph in their sad condition? For if they could not deserve to perish without a fault of their own, how could they deserve to have such a fault put upon them? If it be unjust to damn them without cause, is it not also unjust to make a cause for them whether they will or no ? 34. XI. It is supposed and generally taught, that before the fall Adam had original righteousness, that is, not only that he was as innocent as children new-born are of actual sin (which seems to be that which divines call original righteousness,' there being no other either taught, or reason • Qui vult aliquid in causâ, vult effectum ex istâ causâ profluentem. able) but a rare rectitude of the inner man, a just subordination of the inferior faculties to the superior, an excellent knowledge and clear light: and therefore that he would sin had so little excuse, that well it might deserve such a punishment, so great as himself suffered. Indeed, if he had no such rare perfections and rectitude, I can say nothing to the particular: but to the question, this; that if Adam had it not, then he could not lose it, nor his posterity after him; as it is fiercely and mightily pretended that they did. But if he had this rectitude and rare endowments, what equity is it that his posterity, who had no such helps to resist the sin, and were so far from having any helps at all to resist it, that they had no notice of it, neither of the law, nor the danger, nor the temptation, nor the action, till it was past; I say, what equity is it that his posterity should, in the midst of all these imperfections, be equally punished with him, who sinned against so great a light, and so mighty helps? 35. XII. Infants cannot justly perish for Adam's sin, unless it be just that their wills should be included in his will, and his will justly become theirs by interpretation. Now if so, I ask, whether, before that sin of Adam, were our wills free, or not free? For if we had any will at all, it must be free or not free. If we had none at all, how could it be involved in his? Now if our wills were free, why are they without our act, and whether we will or no, involved in the will of another? If they were not free, how could we be guilty? If they were free, then they could also dissent. If they were not free, then they could not consent; and so, either they never had, or else, before Adam's fall, they lost, their liberty. 36. XIII. But if it be inquired seriously, I cannot imagine what can be answered. Could we prevent the sin of Adam? Could we hinder it? Were we ever asked? Could we, if we had been asked, after we were born a month, have given our negative? Or could we do more before we were born than after? were we, or could we be tied to prevent that sin? Did not God know that we could not in that case dissent? And why then shall our consent be taken in by interpretation, when our dissent could not be really acted; but if at that time we could not dissent really, could we have dissented from Adam's sin by interpretation? If not, then we could dissent no way, and then it was inevitably decreed that |