Vindication of Romans 5, Section 1
A VINDICATION OF THE Fifth Chapter TO THE ROMANS.
FIrst let me begin with his Title and his Scope, & compare them both together, that so we may see how answerable they are each to other; For let me tell you, Sir, (and you shall observe it in all the ridiculous, sensless, fanatical factious, heretical and blasphemous Pamphlets of these our evil days) that fair Titles are taken up only to palliate false and foul intents, neither is there any shorter or surer way of refuting an Error, than in searching directly how all the intended scribbling agrees little or nothing with the pretended superscription. For let truths be spoken, yet they are not so there, unless they be according to the main purpose to which they are intituled. This Authors Title or superscription is (Deus justificatus) now I pray God it prove so the whole work throughout; For I greatly suspect that the main intention of this discourse will but work to frustrate the title that is given to it, because I perceive his principal Scope and Conclusion is, to make Original sin to be a sin so called by a Metonymie only, for he very often denies it to be a sin, properly, really, formally, and inherently, and contends mainly to have it no more but a Metonymical Imputation to certain purposes, which are very involved words, and are so studiously covert, as if he were afraid or ashamed to speak plainly outright. But this is as much as to say, That where Original sin is called sin, it is not so literally and properly, but only is called so (by a figurative form of locution) by a Metonymie of the cause for the effect, namely, sin put only for the punishment of sin, and the imputation of this sin by God, is no more, but the infliction of the punishment; And this punishment is with limitation to certain purposes, and those purposes are no further, but to Temporal misery and Death. Gather all these together, and you shall so come to plain speaking, viz. That Original sin is no such thing, but hath only the name or appellation of sin in a translated sense, but directly it is either no sin, or anothers, and not ours. And therefore the Divine imputation is not of the guilt and corruption to us, but all is an infliction only of the punishment and suffering on us, yet so as that it is confined to a temporal death: If this be not the summary drift, let the whole book speak, but if this make to the Title, now give me leave to speak. How invective is this Vindicator of the Divine Attributes against the Sublapsarians, and yet, (this I'll say for them) they doe not, they dare not include any under the severe Decree of the Divine Justice, till they have considered all as born under the lapse and guilt, and defection and infection of Original sin; Whereas he himself will not have Original sin so much as properly so called, neither will he have any to be so considered unde… the lapse as really under the guilt or fault; yet notwithstanding he will have the Divine Imputation or Decree to descend even upon all, for matter of Temporal infliction, Now judge whether of these two Sentences or Executions can more prejudice or impeach the Divine attributes of Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, &c. viz. That of Gods imputing the whole and utter punishment unto some, together with the real imputation of the sin, or that of Gods imputing but part of the punishment, even unto All; and that without any real imputaon of the sin at all? Certainly the Divine Justice is made to labour more under this charge for punishing all (though but Temporally) where he takes none to be faulty; than it can under that for punishing but some (although eternally) where it finds all guilty. Thus forcing at his own aim, and yet, forgetting the mark prefixed, he miserably impinges upon the same Rock himself, which he would insimulate others for to dash upon.
Would he verily and indeed have vindicated the glory of the Divine attributes in the question of Original sin, he should not have proposed to do it only against the Presbyterian way of understanding it, (who had they no more disturbed the wholsom Discipline of the Church of England, than they have of late directly publiquely, and with one consent) opposed her in her sound Doctrine, she had never been thus widowed to such disorder and distress, but might have sat still a Queen of Reformed Churches, flourishing in her Peace and Truth: Neither will they all yield, that their way of understanding it should ever be pointed out for a way a part, or singular from the Church of England, and other Reformed Churches, but he should rather have taken such a kind of Vindication in hand against the Pelagian, the Manichaean, the Samosatenean, the Socinian, the Pontifician, the Pighian, the Flaccian, the Arminian, the Supralapsarian; yea the Judaical, the Philosophical, the Scholastical, the Synergistical, and the Anabaptistical way of understanding it; all which Hereticks and Sectaries have here (would a man goe about to make an exact Catalogue or Computation) in more than sixteen times sixteen famous (that is infamous) questions, opinions, errors, trench'd too palpably and grosly upon the glory of the Divine attributes indeed. As, be pleased to take here a taste. What but their own way of understanding it caused the Jews to run into some error about Orignal sin? as that some are born in sin, and others not; again, that some are wholly so born, and others but in part, else how is it they say, Thou wast altogether born in sin? Ioh. 9. 34. objecting this scornfully to another in an Exemption of and difference to themselves? and again, That a Typical, a legal or an external Covenant was sufficient to free them from it, without the truth of Christ, and his Gospel of Grace, otherwise, why said they within themselves, We have Abraham to our Father? Mat. 3. 9. and boasted before others, We be Abrahams seed, we be not born of Fornication. Ioh. 8. 33, 41. and why doth Christ (in convincing them) bring them to the Original of sin? Ye are of your Father the Devil, and the lusts of your Father ye will doe, for he was a Murtherer from the beginning, &c. v. 44. if Original sin was not here intended? What but their way of understanding it induced the Heathen Philosophers, some to extol Nature as a noble Mother, and simply vertuous, some to depress her as an obscure step-dame, and absolutely vitious: Some to lament at the immerited evils of birth; some to laugh that it should be thought a man could be born with any vice or crime about him? for this was part of that which unto the Greeks seemed foolishness, 1 Corinth. 1. 23. That one should be saved by another mans merits, that one should be just with another mans righteousness, that one should suffer and satisfie for another mans offences, and that one should be accounted wicked for another mans sins; And in very deed, the Greeks seeking after wisdom, or men curiously Philosophizing and labouring in the Objections and answers of natural reason, hath been the main thing that hath invented and maintained all the opinions and errors about Original sin; Neither in truth is this natural reasoning of men any other than every mans own way of understanding it. But let us goe on to take further notice of what notorious errors (or heresies rather) that have been not only broached but stifly maintained thereby (scilicet) that Original sin, name, and thing, is nothing. That no sin from Adam passes upon Men either at their conception, or at their birth, neither so much as imputed to posterity, that Adams sin hurt none but himself, and that Infants are born in the same state Adam was in before his praevarication. That no man is lyable to damnation because of Adams sin. That Adams sin passes no other way upon his Posterity but by example or imitation only: That Original sin is not remitted to Infants by Baptism, because there is no such thing in them; so the Pelagians, and Coelestians. That sins (both Original and actual) were created by an evil Principle, that is an evil God. That no sin is caused by Free will, but by the evil Principle aforesaid, That sin is the very nature and substance of Man. That some were so born in sin that Christ could not save them; so the Manichees. That Original sin is in no sort to be ascribed unto Man, but either to God, or else to the Devil; so the Hermogenians, and Valentinians. That Original sin is the least of all sins: That it is in the Body, and not in the Soul, or that it is in the inferiour faculties of the Soul only, and not in the superiour. That Original sin is called sin equivocally, abusively, figuratively, or by a Metonymie, either as the Cause of sin, or as caused by sin. That after Baptism it is no real viciosity, but only a penalty. That the whole, and all of it, is not only not imputed, and remitted, but quite taken away and blotted out by Baptism. That Concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin. That there is no Law against the loss of Original righteousness. That notwithstanding the worst of Original sin, there will remain in us much both moral, civil, pious, and Spiritual good. That it is only a guilt binding over to punishment, but no fault of sin properly defiling, so the Pontificians, and especially their Scholasticks. That it is neither defection, depravation, corruption, nor truly and properly a Sin, but only an affliction or punishment descending upon posterity through the guilt of Adams transgression, like as to be born a Slave or a Bastard is his shame only, and not his sin. That nothing was born in us, and with us which was not good, and the very work of God. That Adams disobedience was in no wise ours, neither were we therefore in any wise obnoxious to eternal death; so the Pighians and the Catharinians. That we become infected by Original sin, not by way of Generation or Propagation, but only by way of imitation and outward occasion. That the death of the body is the sequel of Nature, and no punishment for sin whether original or actual; so the Socinians and Racovians. That Original sin is not a vicious accident or adjunct, but is become our very Nature, Essence, and Substance; the very heart, and flesh, and body, and soul; so the Flaccians, and Substantialists. That a mans meer pure naturals (notwithstanding the Fall) are good and perfect. That Original sin is but like a little spot upon the skin, or light wound, for all which there remain still in a man his natural capacities, dispositions, powers, and forces to Good. That Men from their Mothers womb, are as fully endowed with Liberty and Freewill, as Adam was before his fall. That Original sin to a man's Freewill, is but like Garlick to a Loadstone, easily wipt off, and so it falls to work as fresh as at the first. That the Adamical will, or will from Adams fall, hath it self not merely passive in the act of Conversion; but is thereunto actively cooperating together with God; so the Erasmians, the Sunergicts, and Arminians. That Original sin was but St. Augustins dream and Puppet. That Infants under the New Testament are not born in Original sin. That there's no necessity to baptize Infants, with respect to any benefit they thus can have against it. That Original sin and all other is to be remedied only by revelations and raptures of the Spirit, without any use either of Word or Sacraments; so the Swenckfeldians, the Enthousiasts, Anabaptists, Fanaticks, and Familists. That Original sin is not properly a sin, but a Disease, or a Condition, or else figurative form of speaking (viz. by a Metonymie) may be so called; so Zwinglius, and some of the Zwinglians. That God reprobates, God damns men absolutely because it is his will and pleasure, without any respect or condition whether of Original or Actual sin; so the Supralapsarians. Thus you see, Sir, what a crowd of Errors have obtruded only through mens leaning to their own understandings, amongst which, more than once, this Author may find his own, which to me (at first view) seems so like to diverse of the aforesaid Errors, that taken up in strict syllables, I begin to suspect it would not only appear so, but appear so, and much more. But I look not upon him in a likenesse to them, but in some unlikenesse to the Holy Scriptures, and the Church of England, taking his way of understanding it to be another, both to what the first teaches to understand, and in what the last would be understood. And let him not think I speak this as one that would revile him, but as one that (according to his understanding) must dissent from him, using my liberty (which I wish may be mutual) but keeping my Charity nevertheless; my understanding I doe faithfully, and in all humility submit to those two witnesses, neither will I oppose him in any thing but what I receive from them (they that will undertake him in other passages, that fall not directly within this compass, let them do it as they shall find themselves concerned in it, or called to it.) This I take to be the safest way to begin, and (if he will keep his own word) the readiest way to make an end. For taking the 5 Chapter to the Romans to be objected against him; If it be so (saies he) I have done, if it be not so (say I) I have nothing to do. Let me be beleeved both by him and you in this: I have look'd again and again upon his Paraphrase with a single eye, only to find out truth, and proper truth, if there explained, hoping he will doe likewise with this Exposition, when it shall come to his sight; In which (I make his own words mine) if I use any violence I can easily be reproved.