Although it may justly be supposed that Mr B. is not without some thoughts of deviation from the truth in the following questions, yet the last being of most importance, and he being express therein in denying all the effects of the first sin, but only the curse that came upon the outward, visible world, I shall insist only on that, and close our consideration of this chapter. His question is thus proposed: " Q. Did the sin of our first parents in eating of the forbidden fruit bring both upon them and their posterity the guilt of hell-fire, deface the image of God in them, darken their understandings, enslave their wills, deprive them of power to do good, and cause mortality? If not, what are the true penalties denounced against them for that offence?'' To this he answers from Gen. iii. 16-19.
' Vid. Diatrib. de Justit. Vindicat.
OF man's condition before and after the fall. 145
What the sin of our first parents was may easily be discovered from what was said before concerning the commandment given to them. If universal obedience was required of them unto God, according to the tenor of the law of their creation, their sin was an universal re- bellion against and apostasy from him; which though it expressed itself in the peculiar transgression of that command mentioned, yet it is far from being reducible to any one kind of sin, whose whole nature is comprised in that expression. Of the effects of this sin com- monly assigned, Mr B. annumerates and rejects six, sundry whereof are coincident with, and all but one reducible to, that general head of loss of the image of God ; but for the exclusion of them all at once from being any effects of the first sin, Mr B. thus argues : " If there were no effects or consequences of the first sin but what are expressly mentioned, Gen. iii. 16-19, then those now mentioned are no effects of it ; but there are no effects or consequences of that first sin but what are mentioned in that place : " therefore those recounted in his query, and commonly esteemed such, are to be cashiered from any such place in the thoughts of men.
Ans. The words insisted on by Mr B. being expressive of the curse of God for sin on man, and on the whole creation here below for his sake, it will not be easy for him to evince that none of the things he rejects are not eminently inwrapped in them. Would God have denounced and actually inflicted such a curse on the Avhole creation, which he had put in subjection to man, as well as upon man himself, and actually have inflicted it with so much dread and severity as he hath done, if the transgression upon the account whereof he did it had not been as universal a rebellion against him as could be fallen into? Man fell in his whole dependence from God, and is cursed universally, in all his concernments, spiritual and temporal.
But is this indeed the only place of Scripture where the effects of our apostasy from God, in the sin of our first parents, are described ? Mr B. may as well tell us that Gen. iii. 15 is the only place where mention is made of Jesus Christ, for there he is mentioned. But a little to clear this whole matter in our passage, though what hath been spoken may suffice to make naked Mr B.'s sophistry : —
1. By the effects of the first sin, we understand every thing of evil that, either within or without, in respect of a present or future con- dition, in reference to God and the fruition of him whereto man was created, or the enjoyment of any goodness from God, is come upon mankind, by the just ordination and appointment of God, where- unto man was not obnoxious in his primitive state and condition. I am not at present at all engaged to speak de modo, of what is p7'i- vative, what positive, in original sin, of the way of the traduction or propagation of it, of the imputation of the guilt of the first sin, and adhesion of the pollution of our nature defiled thereby, or any other
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146 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
qiiestions that are coincident with these in the usual inquest made into and after the sin of Adam and the fruits of it; but only as to the things themselves, which are here wholly denied. Now, —
2. That whatsoever is evil in man by nature,, whatever he is ob- noxious and liable unto that is hurtful and destructive to him and all men in common, in reference to the end whereto they were created, or any title wherewith they were at first intrusted, is all wholly the efiect of the first sin, and is in solidum to be ascribed thereunto, is easily demonstrated ; for, —
(1.) That which is common to all things in any kind, and is proper to them only of that kind, must needs have some common cause equally respecting the whole kind : but now of the evils that are com- mon to all mankind, and peculiar or jDroper to them and every one of them, there can be no cause but that which equally concerns them all ; which, by the testimony of God himself, was this fall of Adam, Eom. V. 12, 15-19.