If any would know how considerable this article concerning origi- nal sin hath ever been accounted in the church of Christ, let him but consult the writings of St Augustine, Prosper, Hilary, Fulgen- tius, any of those learned fathers whom God stirred up to resist, and enabled to overcome, the spreading Pelagian heresy, or look on those many councils, edicts, decrees of emperors, wherein that heretical doctrine of denying this original corruption is condemned, cursed, and exploded. Now, amongst those many motives they had to pro- ceed so severely against this heresy, one especially inculcated deserves our consideration, namely, —
That it overthrew the necessity of Christ's coming into the world to redeem mankind. It is sin only that makes a Saviour necessary; and shall Christians tolerate such an en'or as, by direct consequence, infers the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to be needless? My purpose for the present is not to allege any testimonies of this kind ; but, holding myself close to my first intention, to show how far in this article, as well as others, the Arminians have apostated from the pure doctrine of the word of God, the consent of orthodox divines, and the confession of this church of England.
70 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISJI.
In the ninth article of our church, which is concerning original sin, I observe esiDecially four things: — First, That it is an inherent evil, the fault and corruption of the nature of every man. Secondly, That it is a thing not subject or conformable to the law of God, but hath in itself, even after baptism, the nature of sin. Thirdly, That by it we are averse from God, and inclined to all manner of evil. Fourthly, That it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. All which are frequently and evidently taught in the word of God, and every one denied by the Arminians, as it may appear by these instances, in some of tliem : —
First, That it is an inherent sin and pollution of nature, having a proper guilt of its otun, makioig us responsible to the wrath of God, and not a bare imputation of another's fault to us his posterity: which, because it would reflect upon us all with a charge of a native imbecility and insufficiency to good, is by these self-idolizers quite exploded.
^" Infants are simply in that estate in which Adam was before his fall," saith Venator. ^" Neither is it at all considerable whether they be the children of believers or of heathens and infidels ; for infants, as infants, have all the same innocency," say they jointly, in their Apology : nay, more plainly, ^ " It can be no fault wherewith we are born." In which last expression these bold innovators, with one dash of their pens, have quite overthrown a sacred verity, an aposto- lic, catholic, fundamental article of Christian religion. But, truly, to me there are no stronger arguments of the sinful corruption of our nature than to see such nefarious issues of unsanctified hearts. Let us look, then, to the word of God confounding this Babylonish design.
First, That the nature of man, which at first was created pure and holy, after the image of God, endowed with such a rectitude and righteousness as was necessary and due unto it, to bring it unto that supernatural end to which it was ordained, is now altogether cor- rupted and become abominable, sinful, and averse from goodness, and that this corruption or concupiscence is originally inherent in us and derived from our first parents, is plentifully delivered in holy writ, as that which chiefly compels us to a self-denial, and drives us unto Christ. " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me," saith David, Ps. li. 5. Where, for the praise of God's goodness towards him, he begins with the confession of his native perverseness, and of the shi wherein
' "Infantes sunt simpliccs, ct stantos in eodcm statu in quo Adanius fuit ante lap- sum." — Vcnat. Theol. re. et nic., fol. 2.
2 " Ncc refert an infantes isti siut tidelium, an othnicorura libcri, infantium eniin, qua infantium, eadeni est innoccntia." — Kem. Apol., p. 87.
3 "Malum culjxc non cat, quia uasci plane est iuvoliintai'ium,'' etc. — Ibid, p. 8).
OF ORIGINAL SIN. 7]
he was wrapped before lie was born. Neither v/as this peculiar to him alone; he had it not from the particular iniquity of his next progenitors, but by an ordinary propagation from the common parent of us all ; though in some of us, Satan, by this Pelagian attempt for hiding the disease, hath made it almost incurable : for even those in- fants of whose innocency the Arminians boast are unclean in the verdict of St Paul, 1 Cor. vh. 14, if not sanctified by an interest in the promise of the covenant ; and no unclean thing shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. ^" The weakness of the members of infants is innocent, and not their souls;" they want nothing, but that the members of their bodies are not as yet ready instruments of sin. They are not sinful only by external denomination, — accounted so be- cause of the imputation of Adam's actual transgression unto them ; for they have all an uncleanness in them by nature, Job xiv. 4, from which they must be " cleansed with the washing of water by the word," Eph. v. 20. Their whole nature is overspread with such a pol- lution as is proper only to sin inherent, and doth not accompany sin imputed ; as we may see in the example of our Saviour, who was pure, immaculate, holy, undefiled, and yet "the iniquity of us all" was imputed unto him. Hence are those phrases of "washing away sin," Acts xxii. 16; of " cleansing filth," 1 Pet. iii. 21, Tit. iii. 5. Something there is in them, as soon as they are bom, excluding them from the kingdom of heaven; for except they also be born again of the Spirit, they shall not enter into it, John iii. 5.