Ans. The case is not the same. The angels had no relation to one another ; they are called morning-stars, — the stars have no dependence one upon another ; but it was otherwise with us, we were in Adam's loins, as a child is a branch of the parent, we were part of Adam, therefore when he sinned, we sinned.
Quest. How is Adam's sin made ours ?
Am. 1. By imputation. The Pelagians
of old held that Adam's transgression is hurtful to posterity by imitation only, not by imputation ; but the text confutes that, " In whom all have sinned."
A. 2. Adam's sin is ours by propagation. Not only is the guilt of Adam's sin imput- ed to us, but the pravity and corruption of his nature is derived to us as poison is car- ried from the fountain to the cistern. This is that which we call original sin, Ps. li. 5., " In sin did my mother conceive me." Adam's leprosy cleaves to us as Naaman's leprosy did cleave to Gehazi, 2 Kings v. 27. This original concupiscence is called*
1. ' The old man,' Eph. iv. 22. It is said to be the old man, not that it is weak as old men are, but for its long standing, and of its deformity. In old age the fair blossoms of beauty fall ; so original sin is the old man, because it hath withered our beauty, and made us deformed in God's eye.
2. Original concupiscence is called ' the law of sin,' Rom. vii. 25. Original sin hath vim coactivam,—ihc i>ower of a law. A law binds the subject to allegiance. Men must needs do what sin will have them, when they have both the love of sin to draw them, ami the law of sin to force them. In original sin there is something privative, and something positive.— 1. Something priva- tive. Carcutia jnstitice dehitcc, we have lost that oxccUent quintessential frame of soul
OF ORIGINAL SIN.
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wliich once we had. Sin hath cut tlic lock of original purity, where our strength hiy. — 2. Something positive. Original sin hatli contaminated Jind defiled our virgin-nature. It was deafh among the Romans to poison the springs. Original sin hath poisoned the spring of our nature, — it hath turned heau- ty into leprosy, — it hath turned the azure brightness of our souls into a midnight dark- ness.
Original sin hath become co-natural to us. A man by nature cannot but sin ; though there were no devil to tempt, — no bad examples to imitate, — yet there is such an innate principle in him, that he cannot forbear sinning, 2 Pet. ii. 14. A peccato ces- sare nesciunt, — who cannot cease to sin, as a horse that is lame cannot go without halt- ing.— In the original, sin is, — 1. An aver- sion from good. Man hath a desire to be happy, yet opposeth that which should pro- mote his happiness ; he hath a disgust of holiness, he liatcs to be reformed. Since we fell from God, we have no mind to re- turn to him. — 2. A propension to evil. If, as the Pelagians say, there is so much good- ness in us since the fall, then why is there not as much natural proneness to good as there is to evil ? Our own experience tells us that the natural bias of the soul hath a tendency to that which is bad. The very heathens by the light of nature saw this : Hierocles the philosopher said, " It is graft- ed in us by nature to sin." Men roll sin as honey under their tongue. They drink ini- quity as water, Job xv. 16. Like an hy- dropical person that thii'sts for drink and is not satisfied : so they have a kind of drought on them, they thirst for sin. They sin, Eph. iv. 19., though they are tired out in committing sin, yet they sin, Jer. ix. 5., " They weary themselves to commit ini- quity ;" as a man that follows his game while he is weary, yet he delights in it, and can- not leave off. Though God hath set so many flaming swords in the way to stop men in their sin, yet they go on in sin ; which all shews what a strong appetite they have to the forbidden fruit.
That we may further see the nature of original sin, consider, Ast. the universality of it ; it hath, as a poison, diffused itself into all the parts and powers of our soul, Isa. i.
5., " The whole head is sick, and the whole lieart faint." Like a sick patient that hath no part sound, — his liver swelled, — his feet gangrened, — his lungs perished; such in- fected, gangrened souls have we, till Christ (who hath made a medicine of his blood) do cure us.