Chapter XII. — Of original rightcoiis7iess, natural corruption, Satan's joining with it, and our duty thereupon.
Object. § I. But here mark a plot of spiritual treason. Satan, joining with our corruption, setteth the wit on work to persuade the soul that this inward rebellion is not so bad, because it is natural to us, as a condition of nature rising out of the first principles in our creation, and was curbed in by the bridle of original righteousness, which they would have accessary and supernatural, and therefore allege that concupiscence is less odious and more excusable in us, and so no great danger in yielding and betraying our souls unto it, and by that means persuading us that that which is our dead- liest enemy hath no harm in it, nor meaneth any to us.--
Ans. This rebellion of lusts against the understanding is not natural, as our nature came out of God's hands at the first, Gen. i. 27 ; for this, being evil and the cause of evil, could not come from God, who is good and the cause of all good, and nothing but good, who, upon the creation of all things, pronounced them good, and, after the creation of man, pronounced of all things that they were very good, ver. 31. Now, that which is ill and very ill cannot be seated at the same time in that which is good and very good. God created man at the first right ; he of himself ' sought out many inventions,' Eccles. vii. 29. As God beautified the heaven with stars, and decked the earth with variety of plants, and herbs, and flowers, so he adorned man, his prime creature hero below, with all those endowments that were fit for a happy condition ; and original righteousness was fit and due
* Most of tho most dangerous opinions of popory, as justification liy works, state of perfection, merit, satisfaction, supererogation, &c., spring from hence, that they have slight conceits of concupisc(;nco as a condition of nature. Yet some of them, as Michael Bayns, professor at Louvain, &c., arc sound in the point.
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to an original and happy condition. Therefore, as the angels were created with all angelical perfections, and as our bodies were created in an absolute temper of all the humours, so the soul was created in that sweet harmony wherein there was no discord, as an instrument in tune, fit to be moved to any duty ; as a clean, neat glass, the soul represented God's image and holiness,
§ II. Therefore it is so far, that concupiscence should be natural, that the contrary to it, namely, righteousness, wherein Adam was created, was natural to him ; though it were planted in man's nature by God, and so in regard of the cause of it, was supernatural ; yet because it was agi'eeable to that happy condition, without which he could not subsist, in that respect it was natural, and should have been derived, if he had stood, together with his nature, to his posterity. As heat in the air, though it hath its first impression from the heat of the sun, yet is natm-al, because it agreeth to the nature of that element ; and though man be compounded of a spiritual and earthly substance, yet it is natural that the baser earthly part should be subject to the superior, because where there is difi'erent degrees of worthi- ness, it is fit there should be a subordination of the meaner to that which is in order higher. The body naturally desnes food and bodily content- ments, yet in a man endued with reason, this desire is governed so as it becomes not inordinate. A beast sins not in its appetite, because it hath no power above to order it. A man that lives in a solitary place, far remote from company, may take his liberty to live as it pleaseth him ; but if he comes to live under the government of some well-ordered city, then he is bound to submit to the laws and customs of that city, under penalty upon any breach of order ; so the risings of the soul, howsoever in other creatures they are not blameable, having no commander in themselves, above them, yet in man they are to be ordered by reason and judgment.
Therefore it cannot be, that concupiscence should be natm'al, in regard of the state of creation. It was Adam's sin ; which had many sins in the womb of it, that brought this disorder upon the soul. Adam's person first corrupted our nature, and nature being corrupted, corrupts our persons, and our persons being corrupted, increase the corruption of our nature, by custom of sinning, which is another nature in us. As a stream, the farther it runs from the spring head, the more it enlargeth its channel, by the running of lesser rivers into it, until it empties itself into the sea ; so cor- ruption, till it be overpowered by grace, swelleth bigger and bigger, so that though this disorder was not natural, in regard of the first creation, yet since the fall it has become natural, even as we call that which is common to the whole kind, and pi^opagated from parents to their childi-en, to be natural ; so that it is both natural and against nature, natural now, but against nature in its first perfection.