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question remains, how came the souls of his posterity to be ART. defiled; for if they were created pure, it seems to be an unjust cruelty to them, to condemn them to such an union to a defiled body, as should certainly corrupt them? All that can be said in answer to this is,

That God has settled it as a law in the creation, that a soul should inform a body according to the texture of it, and either conquer it, or be mastered by it, as it should be differently made: and that as such a degree of purity in the texture of it might make it both pure and happy; so a contrary degree of texture might have very contrary effects. And if, with this, God made another general law, that when all things were duly prepared for the propagation of the species of mankind, a soul should be always ready to go into and animate those first threads and beginnings of life; those laws being laid down, Adam, by corrupting his own frame, corrupted the frame of his whole posterity, by the general course of things, and the great law of the creation. So that the suffering this to run through all the race, is no more (only different in degrees and extent) than the suffering the folly or madness of a man to infect his posterity. In these things God acts as the Creator of the world by general rules, and these must not be altered because of the sins and disorders of men: but they are rather to have their course, that so sin may be its own punishment. The defilement of the race being thus stated, a question remains, whether this can be properly called a sin, and such as deserves God's wrath and damnation? On the one hand an opposition of nature to the Divine nature must certainly be hateful to God, as it is the root of much malignity and sin. Such a nature cannot be the object of his love, and of itself it cannot be accepted of God: now since there is no mean in God, between love and wrath, acceptation and damnation, if such persons are not in the first order, they must be in the second.

Yet it seems very hard, on the other hand, to apprehend, how persons who have never actually sinned, but are only unhappily descended, should be, in consequence to that, under so great a misery. To this several answers are made: some have thought that those who die before they commit any actual sin, have indeed no share in the favour of God, but yet that they pass unto a state in the other world, in which they suffer little or nothing. The stating this more clearly, will belong to another opinion, which shall be afterwards explained.

There is a further question made, whether this vicious inclination is a sin, or not? Those of the church of Rome, as they believe that original sin is quite taken away by baptism, so finding that this corrupt disposition still remains in us, they do from thence conclude, that it is no part of original sin; but that this is the natural state in which Adam was made at first, only it is in us without the restraint or bridle of supernatural assistances, which was given to him, but lost by sin, and re

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Gal. v. 17.

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stored to us in baptism. But, as was said formerly, Adam in his first state was made after the image of God, so that his bodily powers were perfectly under the command of his mind; this revolt, that we feel our bodies and senses are always in, cannot be supposed to be God's original workmanship. There are great disputings raised concerning the meaning of a long discourse of St. Paul's in the seventh of the Romans concerning a constant struggle that he felt within himself; which some, arguing from the scope of the whole Epistle, and the beginning of that chapter, understand only of the state that St. Paul represents himself to have been in while yet a Jew, and before his conversion: whereas others understand it of him in his converted and regenerated state. Very plausible things have been said on both sides, but without arguing any thing from words, the sense of which is under debate, there are other places which do manifestly express the struggle that Matt. xxvi. is in a good man: The flesh is weak, though the spirit is willing: the flesh lusteth against the spirit, as the spirit lusteth Rom. viii. against the flesh:' we ought to be still 'mortifying the deeds of the body; and we feel many sins that do so easily beset us,' that from these things we have reason to conclude, that there is a corruption in our nature, which gives us a bias and propensity to sin. Now there is no reason to think that baptism takes away all the branches and effects of original sin: it is enough if we are by it delivered from the wrath of God, and brought into a state of favour and acceptation: we are freed from the curse of death, by our being entitled to a blessed resurrection and if we are so far freed from the corruption of our nature, as to have a fœderal right to such assistances as will enable us to resist and repress it, though it is not quite extinct in us, so long as we live in these frail and mortal bodies, here are very great effects of our admission to Christianity by baptism; though this should not go so far as to root all inclinations to evil out of our nature. The great disposition that is in us to appetite and passion, and that great heat with which they inflame us; the aversion that we naturally have to all the exercises of religion, and the pains that must be used to work us up to a tolerable degree of knowledge, and an ordinary measure of virtue, shews that these are not natural to us: whereas sloth and vice do grow on us without any care taken about them so that it appears, that they are the natural, and the other the forced, growth of our souls. These ill dispositions are so universally spread through all mankind, and appear so early, and in so great a diversity of ill inclinations, that from hence it seems reasonable and just to infer, that this corruption is spread through our whole nature and species, by the sin and disobedience of Adam. And beyond this a great many among ourselves think that they cannot go, in asserting of original sin.

But there is a further step made by all the disciples of St.

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Austin, who believe that a covenant was made with all man- ART. kind in Adam, as their first parent: that he was a person constituted by God to represent them all; and that the covenant was made with him, so that if he had obeyed, all his posterity should have been happy, through his obedience; but by his disobedience they were all to be esteemed to have sinned in him, his act being imputed and transferred to them all. St. Austin considered all mankind as lost in Adam, and in that he made the decree of election to begin: there being no other reprobation asserted by him, than the leaving men to continue in that state of damnation, in which they were by reason of Adam's sin; so that though by baptism all men were born again and recovered out of that lost state, yet unless they were within the decree of election, they could not be saved, but would certainly fall from that state, and perish in a state of sin; but such as were not baptized were shut out from all hope. Those word's of Christ's, 'Except ye be John iii. 3, born again of water and of the Spirit, ye cannot enter into 5. the kingdom of God,' being expounded so as to import the indispensable necessity of baptism to eternal salvation; all who were not baptized were reckoned by him among the damned: yet this damnation, as to those who had no actual sin, was so mitigated, that it seemed to be little more than an exclusion out of heaven, without any suffering or misery, like a state of sleep and inactivity. This was afterwards dressed up as a division or partition in hell, called the Limbo of Infants; so by bringing it thus low, they took away much of the horror that this doctrine might otherwise have given the world.

It was not easy to explain the way how this was propagated: they wished well to the notion of a soul's propagating a soul, but that seemed to come too near creation: so it was not received as certain. It was therefore thought, that the body being propagated defiled, the soul was created and infused at the time of conception: and that though God did not create it impure, yet no time was interposed between its creation and infusion: so that it could never be said to have been once pure, and then to have become impure. All this, as it afforded an easy foundation to establish the doctrine of absolute decrees upon it, no care being taken to shew how this sin came into the world, whether from an absolute decree or not, so it seemed to have a great foundation in that large discourse of St. Paul's: where, in the fifth of the Romans, he compares the blessings that we receive by the death of Christ, with the guilt and misery that was brought upon us by the sin of Adam. Now it is confessed, that by Christ we have both an imputation or communication of the merits of his death, and likewise a purity and holiness of nature conveyed to us by his doctrine and spirit. In opposition then to this, if the comparison is to be closely pursued, there must be

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to the end.

ART. an imputation of sin, as well as a corruption of nature, transfused to us from Adam. This is the more considerable as to the point of imputation, because the chief design of St. Paul's discourse seems to be levelled at that, since it is begun upon the head of reconciliation and atonement: upon Rom.v. 12, which it follows, that as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and death passed upon all men, for that (or, as others render it, in whom) all have sinned.' Now they think it is all one to their point, whether it be rendered for that, or in whom: for though the latter words seem to deliver their opinion more precisely, yet it being affirmed, that, according to the other rendering, all who die have sinned; and it being certain, that many infants die who have never actually sinned, these must have sinned in Adam, they could sin no other way. It is afterwards said by St. Paul, that by the offence of one many were dead: that the judgment was by one to condemnation: that by one man's offence death reigned by one. That by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation: and that by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.' As these words are positive, and of great importance in themselves, so all this is much the stronger, by the opposition in which every one of them is put to the effects and benefits of Christ's death; particularly to our justification through him, in which there is an imputation of the merits and effects of his death, that are thereby transferred to us; so that the whole effect of this discourse is taken away, if the imputation of Adam's sin is denied. And this explication does certainly quadrate more entirely to the words of the Article, as it is known that this was the tenet of those who prepared the Articles, it having been the generally-received opinion from St. Austin's days downward.

But to many other divines this seems a harsh and unconceivable opinion; it seems repugnant to the justice and goodness of God, to reckon men guilty of a sin which they never committed, and to punish them in their souls eternally for that which is no act of theirs: and though we easily enough conceive how God, in the riches of his grace, may transfer merit and blessing from one person to many, this being only an economy of mercy, where all is free, and such a method is taken as may best declare the goodness of God: but in the imputation of sin and guilt, which are matters of strict justice, it is quite otherwise. Upon that head God is pleased often to appeal to men for the justice of all his ways: and therefore no such doctrine ought to be admitted, that carries in it an idea of cruelty, beyond what the blackest tyrants have ever Jer. xxxi. invented. Besides that in the scripture such a method as the punishing children for their fathers' sins, is often disclaimed, Ezek. xviii. and it is positively affirmed, that every man that sins is punished Now though, in articles relating to the nature of God,

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they acknowledge it is highly reasonable to believe, that there ART. may be mysteries which exceed our capacity; yet in moral matters, in God's fœderal dealings with us, it seems unreasonable, and contrary to the nature of God, to believe that there may be a mystery contrary to the clearest notions of justice and goodness; such as the condemning mankind for the sin of one man, in which the rest had no share; and as contrary to our ideas of God, and upon that to set up another mystery that shall take away the truth and fidelity of the promises of God; justice and goodness being as inseparable from his nature, as truth and fidelity can be supposed to be. This seems to expose the Christian religion to the scoffs of its enemies, and to objections that are much sooner made than answered: and since the foundation of this is a supposed covenant with Adam as the representative head of mankind, it is strange that a thing of that great consequence should not have been more plainly reported in the history of the creation; but that men should be put to fetch out the knowledge of so great and so extraordinary a thing, only by some remote consequences. It is no small prejudice against this opinion, that it was so long before it first appeared in the Latin church; that it was never received in the Greek; and that even the western church, though perhaps for some ignorant ages it received it, as it did every thing else, very implicitly, yet has been very much divided both about this, and many other opinions related to it, or arising out of it.

As for those words of St. Paul's, that are its chief, if not its only foundation, they say many things upon them. First, it is a single proof. Now when we have not a variety of places proving any point, in which one gives light, and leads us to a sure exposition of another, we cannot be so sure of the meaning of any one place, as to raise a theory, or found a doctrine, upon it. They say further, that St. Paul seems to argue, from that opinion of our having sinned in Adam, to prove that we are justified by Christ. Now it is a piece of natural logic not to prove a thing by another, unless that other is more clear of itself, or at least more clear by its being already received and believed. This cannot be said to be more clear of itself, for it is certainly less credible or conceivable, than the reconciliation by Christ. Nor was this clear from any special revelation made of it in the Old Testament: therefore there is good reason to believe, that it was then a doctrine received among the Jews, as there are odd things of this kind to be found among the Cabbalists, as if all the souls of all mankind had been in Adam's body. Now when an argument is brought in scripture to prove another thing by, though we are bound to acknowledge the conclusion, yet we are not always sure of the premises; for they are often founded upon received opinions. So that it is not certain that St. Paul meant to offer this doctrine to our belief as true, but only