(2.) The evils that are now incumbent upon men in their natural condition (which what they are shall be afterward considered) were either incumbent on them at their first creation, before the sin and fall of our first parents, or they are come upon them since, through some interposing cause or occasion. That they were not in them or on them, that they were not liable or obnoxious to those evils which are now incumbent on them, in their first creation, as they came forth from the hand of God (besides what was said before of the state and condition wherein man was created, even '"'upright" in the sight of God, in his favour and acceptation, no way obnoxious to his anger and wrath), is evident by the light of this one consideration, namely, that there was nothing in man nor belonging to him, no respect, no regard or relation, but what was purely and immediately of the holy God's creation and institution. Now, it is contrary to all that he hath revealed or made known to us of himself, that he should be the immediate author of so much evil as is now, by his own testimony, in man by nature, and, without any occasion, of so much vanity and misery as he is subject unto; and, besides, directly thwarting the tes- timony which he gave of all the works of his hands, that they were exceeding good, it being evident that man, in the condition whereof we speak, is exceeding evil.
3. If all the evil mentioned hath since befallen mankind, then it hath done so either by some chance and accident whereof God was not aware, or by his righteous judgment and appointment, in reference to some procuring and justly- deserving cause of such a punishment. To affirm the first, is upon the matter to deny him to be God ; and I doubt not but that men at as easy and cheap a rate of sin may deny that there is a God, as, confessing his divine essence, to turn it into an idol, and by making thick clouds, as Job speaks, to interpose between him and
OF man's condition befoee and after the fall. 147
the affairs of the world, to exclude his energetical providence in the disposal of all the works of his hands. If the latter be affirmed, I ask, as before, what other common cause, wherein all and every one of mankind is equally concerned, can be assigned of the evils mentioned, as the procurement of the wrath and vengeance of God, from whence tliey are, but only the fall of Adam, the sin of our first parents, espe- cially considering that the Holy Ghost doth so expressly point out this fountain and source of the evils insisted on, Rom. v. 12, 15-19?
4. These things, then, being premised, it will quickly appear that every one of the particulars rejected by Mr B. from being fruits or effects of the first sin are indeed the proper issues of it; and though Mr B. cut the roll of the abominations and corruptions of the nature of man by sin, and cast it into the fire, yet we may easily write it again, and add many more words of the like importance.
The first effect or fruit of the first sin rejected by Mr. B. is, " its rendering men guilty of hell-fire ;" but the Scripture seems to be of another mind, Rom. v, 12, " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." That all men sinned in Adam, that they contracted the guilt of the same death with him, that death entered by sin, the Holy Ghost is express in. The death here men- tioned is that which God threatened to Adam if he did transgress, Gen. ii. 17; which that it was not death temporal only, yea not at all, Mr B. contends by denying mortality to be a fruit of this sin, as also excluding in this very query all room for death spiritual, which consists in the defacing of the image of God in us, which he with this rejects: and what death remains but that which hath hell fol- lowing after it we shall afterward consider.
Besides, that death which Christ died to deliver us from was that which we were obnoxious to upon the account of the first sin ; for he came to " save that which was lost," and tasted death to deliver us from death, dying to " deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage," Heb. ii. 15. But that this was such a death as hath hell-fire attending it, he manifests by affirming that he " delivers us from the wrath to come." By "hell-fire" we understand nothing but the "wrath of God" for sin; into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall, our God being a consuming fire. That the guilt of every sin is this death whereof we speak, that hath both curse and wrath attending it, and that it is the proper "wages of sin," the testimony of God is evident, Rom. vi. 23. What other death men are obnoxious to on the account of the first sin, that hath not these concomitants, Mr B. hath not as yet revealed. " By nature," also, we are " children of wrath," Eph. ii. 3. And on what foot of account our obnoxiousness now by nature unto wrath is to be stated, is sufficiently evident by the light of the preceding considerations.