But let them enjoy their own wisdom, which is earthly, sensual, and devilish. The Scripture is clear that the sin of Adam is the sin of us all, not only by propagation and communication (whereby not his singular fault, but something of the same nature, is derived unto us), but also by an imputation of his actual transgression unto us all, his singular disobedience being by this means made ours. The grounds of this imputation I touched before, which may be all re- duced to his being a common person and head of all our nature ; which investeth us with a double interest in his demerits, whilst so he was: — 1. As we were then in him and parts of him; 2. As he sustained the place of our whole nature in the covenant God made with him ; — both which, even according to the exigence of God's jus- tice, require that his transgression be also accounted ours. And St Paul is plain, not only that " by one man's disobedience many were made sinners," Rom. v. 19, by the derivation of a corrupted nature, but also that "by one man's offence judgment came upon all," verse 18. Even for his one sin all of us are accounted to have deserved judg- ment and condemnation; and therefore, verse 12, he affirmeth that by one man sin and death entered upon all the world ; and that be- cause we have all sinned in him : which we no otherwise do but that his transgression in God's estimation is accounted ours. And the opposition the apostle there maketh between Christ and his righte-
' " Peccatum itaque originale nee habent pro peccato proprie dicto, quod posteros Adami odio Dei dignos faciat, nee pro malo, quod per modum proprie dictte poense ab Adamo in posteros dimanet sed pro infirmitate," etc. — Eem. Apol., fol. 84.
76 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
oiisness, and Adam and his disobedience, doth sufficiently evince it; as may appear by this figure: — ^
SlCUt \ ( AdaniO, ^ / xplfioc, \ ( xardxpifiec, '\ ( vafd.'jrraifia.
redunda- \ I per \ Adarai,
/ xpifia,
\ Biod, ) [ t,uri;, ) \ Christi.
Christo, I omnes ] x.'^pi; i vit, eis \ hxalunv ( unura j lixcciufio.
The whole similitude chiefly consists in the imputation of Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness, unto the seed of the one by nature, and of the other by grace. But that we are counted righteous for the righteousness of Christ is, among Protestants (though some differ in the manner of their expressions), as yet without question ; and, there- fore, are no less undoubtedly accounted sinners by, or guilty of, the first sin of Adam.
I shall not show their opposition unto the truth in many more particulars concerning this article of original sin, having been long ago most excellently prevented, even in this very method, by the way of antithesis to the Scripture and the orthodox doctrine of our church, by the famously learned Master Reynolds, in his excellent treatise, " Of the Sinfulness of Sin;" where he hath discovered their errors, fully answered their sophistical objections, and invincibly con- firmed the truth from the word of God. Only, as I have showed al- ready how they make this we call original sin no sin at all, neither inherent in us nor imputed unto us, nor no punishment truly so called ; so, because our church saith directly that it meriteth damna- tion, I will briefly show what they conceive to be the desert thereof.
First, For Adam himself, they affirm " that the death threatened unto him if he transgressed the covenant, and due unto him for it,* was neither death temporal, for that before he was subject unto, by the primary constitution of his nature; nor yet such an eternal death as is accompanied with damnation or everlasting punishment." No ! why, then, let us here learn some new divinity. Christians have hitherto believed that whatsoever may be comprised under the name of death, together with its antecedents, consequents, and attendants, was threatened to Adam in this commination ; and divines, until this day, can find but these two sorts of death in the Scripture, as penal unto men, and pi'operly so called ; and shall we now be persuaded that it was neither of these that was threatened unto Adam? It must be so, if we will believe the Arminians; it was neither the one nor the other of the former; but whereas he was created mortal, and subject to a temporal death, the sanction of his obedience was a threatenmg of the utter dissolution of his soul and body, or a reduc-
' rara:>\is , ad Rom. v.
' " Cum dc ODtcrna mortc lo(|Uuntur llemonstrantcs in hnc de Adamo quaestionc, non in- telligunt mortem illam, queeseterna poena sensus — dicitur," etc. — Rem. Apol., cap. iv. p. 57.
OF ORIGINAL SIN. 77
tiou to their primitive nothing. But what if a man will not here take them at their words, but believe, according to St Paul, That death entered by sin; that if we had never sinned, we had never died; that man, in the state of innocency, was, by God's constitution, free even from temporal death, and all things directly conducing thereunto? secondly, That this death, threatened to our first pa- rents, comprehended damnation also of soul and body for evermore, and that of their imaginary dissolution there is not the least intima- tion in the word of God? — why, I confess they have impudence enough, in divers places, to beg that we would believe their asser- tions, but never confidence enough to venture once to prove them true. Now, they who make so slight of the desert of this sin in Adam himself will surely scarce allow it to have any ill merit at all in his posterity.