The Doctrine of Original Sin

THE

DOCTRINE OF

ORIGINAL SIN, STATED AND DEFENDED

IN TWO SERMONS,

MR. PETER GOODWIN,

MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.

SERMON I.

Romans 5:19.

By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.

This is so manifest, that our more sober and thoughtful Arminians see a necessity of abandoning the foregoing pretence, of our being made sinners only by imitation. They plead, that we are said to have sinned in Adam, and to be made sinners by his disobedience; not, indeed, by the imputation of his sin and disobedience to us, but only by becoming obnoxious to that death, which was the punishment of his sin. Thus a late annotator, [6] of no small fame, says, "This is the only sense in which we are said, by the disobedience of the first man, to be made sinners, namely, by being subject to the death, and temporal calamities and miseries, which came upon all mankind for Adam's sin; so that we sinned in him, and, by his disobedience, became sinners, by a metonymy of the effect, by suffering the punishment which God had threatened to him for it." Herein he follows Grotius, and produces several scripture testimonies to prove, that the Hebrew word signifies both sin and punishment; which pains might well have been spared, because as no body denies it, so it is nothing to the purpose. This we are told, is the interpretation given of these passages by the Greek expositors, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Cecumenius, and Theophylact; and it is generally adopted by the gentlemen on the other side of the question. But besides, that it is difficult to conceive how we should become liable to the punishment, and how it is reconcilable with the justice and righteousness of God to inflict that punishment upon us, if we were no way chargeable with the guilt of that sin, since punishment always supposes guilt. I say, besides this, such an interpretation seems to reflect absurdity upon the apostle and his reasoning; in the twelfth verse, death is said to have "passed upon all, because all sinned" in Adam, which is allowed, by the annotator, to be parallel with my text. Now, there the apostle plainly gives a reason why the sentence of death passed upon all men; and if this be the only meaning of our being said to sin in Adam, it makes him guilty of the absurdity of proving idem per idem. The sense, according to this interpretation, must be, death has passed upon all men, because all men are subject to death, or death has passed upon all men, because death passes upon all men. An absurdity which so great a reasoner as the apostle Paul, abstracting the consideration of his being inspired, could never have been guilty of.

There is therefore certainly something more than this intended in the expression, and that is, that we are made sinners by having that one man's disobedience imputed to us. Not that we actually and personally committed that act of disobedience that is impossible, since we did not then exist; and the very notion of imputation clears us from the ridiculous charge of such an absurdity; for the judicial accounting that to us, which is not inherent in us, and was not personally done by us, is what is meant by imputation, and that we are thus made sinners by Adam's disobedience, appears both from the signification of the word here made use of, and from the scope of the apostle in this context. When we are said to be made sinners, the word K atezaxhsan, properly signifies the making us such by a judicial act. We are constituted sinners, i.e. in the divine economy and administration accounted as criminals. That act of disobedience is reckoned to and charged upon us; and we are dealt with as if we had actually sinned. This signification the word will very well bear; and that it is the meaning of it here, seems very plain to me, from this whole discourse of the apostle. We are so made sinners, as to be made liable to death, the punishment of sin: this has passed upon all men, because all are reckoned to have sinned in Adam. It has reigned, from Adam successively, in all the various generations of the world, and that even over them who had not sinned, after the similitude of Adam's transgression, or infants who die before they come under the guilt of any actual sin: how could they be made liable to death, the punishment of sin, if they had not been judged or reckoned to have sinned? Does not the supposition reflect upon the justice of God, in punishing men for an act they were no way concerned in? Nay, does it not imply a contradiction, since punishment always supposes guilt? Whether God, by his sovereign power, might not have inflicted death on an innocent creature, I do not dispute; but that an innocent creature should be guilty of death, seems, to me, a contradiction; for death being the wages of sin, to be guilty of death, is some way or other to have sinned. We could not sin in our own persons before we existed; and therefore if, by the first man's disobedience, we are made guilty of death, it must be by the imputation of the guilt of that sin to us. This also seems plain, from the verse immediately preceding my text, where, by the one man's offence, judgment is said to have come upon all men to condemnation. Judgment is not in the original; but it is not material, whether we supply sin, according to some; or judgment, according to others; for, which ever of them is meant, it is expressly said to be to condemnation; "which word," says a learned writer, [7] "cannot, with any manner of consistency, be taken in any other than a forensic sense; and, perhaps, it is never used in any other sense in the New Testament." Now, we are thus brought under condemnation by the offence of one, even Adam; and for one person to be condemned for the offence of another, must necessarily argue the imputation of that offence to him, otherwise the condemnation would not be just. If, therefore, all mankind are liable to judgment or condemnation by this one offence, although not actually committed by them, it must necessarily be placed to their account, i.e. imputed to them.

Now, in this covenant, Adam was considered not as a private, but a public person, sustaining the persons of all mankind: he was constituted the head and representative of all his posterity, and we were in him, not only seminally, but federally also: we were in him as our natural root and common parent, from whom we descend by natural generation: we were in his loins, and a part of him, when he fell, and, upon this account, his disobedience may be reckoned ours; as Levi, not born till many years after, is said to have paid tithes to Melchisedec, because he was in the loins of Abraham, Heb. vii. 9, 10. But the principal ground of the imputation of his sin to us is, that we were in him as our federal head and representative. If this can be proved, the doctrine we are confirming will be established upon a firm and unshaken foundation. And we need, I think, look no further for the proof of it than our context: for why is the emphasis all along laid upon this one man, as him, by whom, and this one man’s sin, as that, by which we are made sinners, and subject to death and condemnation? Why were we not made sinners by Eve, who was first in the transgression, and was a root of propagation as well as Adam? Why not by the sins he committed after his fall, when he still continued to be the natural root of mankind, and we were all still seminally in him? Nay, why not by the sins of our intermediate parents? It is very difficult, if not impossible to assign any other reason for this, but because Adam was considered as our public covenant-head and representative, and that he himself ceased to be so, upon his breach of the covenant by his first act of disobedience. And this seems the direct intendment of the apostle, verse 14, where be calls Adam, the figure or type of him that was to come. Some by him that was to come, understand mankind; and give us this as the sense that all are, by Adam's disobedience, subject to death, even infants that never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, because, when he committed that act, he was the type of all men that were to come, and were to succeed him, and they were all represented in his person; and so is an express assertion of the truth we are pleading for. But it will unavoidably follow, from the common interpretation, if by him that was to come, we do, as I think we ought to, understand Christ. For in what was Adam a type of Christ? Not as he was a man certainly, consisting of soul and body, since, in that respect, all who lived before Christ might as justly be called types of him as Adam; but it was in some peculiar circumstance in which he was distinguished from all others, and that is, he was the federal head and representative of his posterity. It was in this regard, that in the covenant transactions between God and him, and in the consequent event of those transactions, he was a public person; so Christ the antitype certainly was. He is the Head of the new covenant, and acted as a public Person and the Representative of all that the Father had given him: he dealt with God for them, as their Head and Representative, died for them, rose for them, entered within the veil for them, and did all that he did for them; and in this regard was Adam his type; God dealt with him, and he acted as the federal head and representative of his posterity; so that what he did in that station, and under that character, we may be said to have done in him; and what was done in him, may be said to have been done to us in him. And this appears from the subsequent reasoning of the apostle, where he considers the influence of these two heads, what is conveyed by them, and the manner of conveying it to those that are respectively in them; that as Adam, the type and head of the first covenant, conveys sin and death to all that were in him naturally, so Christ, the antitype and the head of the new covenant, conveys righteousness and life to all that are in him spiritually; so that we need not look any further than to this discourse of the apostle, to prove that Adam was the federal head and representative of all his posterity. "But this," says a right reverend expositor, [10] who represents it as a harsh and inconceivable opinion, "is only a single proof, and, when we have not a variety of places, proving any point in which one gives light to another, we cannot be so sure of the meaning of any one place, as to raise a theory, or found a doctrine upon it." To which I answer: that if this was the case, and we had no other proof, this is not a just exception, because a single proof; if it is valid, is and ought to be esteemed a sufficient proof. But this really is not the case, for we have other scriptures that give light to, and tend to confirm this truth; and particularly where the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 45, compares Adam and Christ together, under the notions of the first and second man, and the first and last Adam. In what respect is Christ called the second man? It cannot be meant in order of time and number, for so Cain, and not Christ, was the second man: it must therefore be in some respect, in which there were but two men, in which there was one, and but one, before him; and it is very difficult to conceive in what respect this could be, unless as he was a public person, and head of all his spiritual seed. As, if Christ was a second public person, there must have been a first public person, and that must be Adam, since no man, if not Adam, was ever the public head of all mankind: thus he is also called the last Adam, because typified by the first, and bearing some resemblance to him. But in what does this resemblance consist, if not in this, that as Adam was a public person, and head of the first covenant, and as such conveyed sin and death to his natural posterity, so Christ is a public person, and head of the new covenant, and the meritorious as well as effective principal of the resurrection, by which his spiritual seed shall have a full and complete deliverance from all the effects of Adam's sin? "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive," 1 Cor. xv. 22. From all which it appears, that Adam was not only the natural root, but the federal head and representative of his natural posterity, and this is the ground and reason of the imputation of the guilt of the first sin to us, or of our being made sinners by his disobedience.

If, therefore, there is any injustice, it must be in the matter of the covenant he was placed under: but this cannot be, since God therein required nothing of him, but what he was obliged to, by the law of his creation, as well as what he was able to perform. The most perfect and exact obedience was due from man to God, the author of his being, by the law of nature; and the transgression of this law of nature deserved wrath, and punishment was due to it from the justice of God. In requiring such an obedience, therefore, and that under the penalty of death, there could be no injustice. But then if it is considered, that God likewise promised to reward this obedience, that was due by the law of his creation, not only with the continuance of his present happy circumstances, but a super added felicity, which man could have no claim to, but from the free promise of God, it is so far from being an instance of severity, that it is an instance of infinite grace and condescending goodness in God. This, some will say, is true, with respect to Adam himself; but if Adam is considered in all this as a public person and representative, it is equally true with respect to us, since, if he had stood, we had as certainly received the benefit, as, by his fall, we are involved in his guilt and ruin. Would it have been just with God to have judged us innocent in innocent Adam? And is it unjust in God to judge us guilty in guilty Adam? I shall take leave here to produce the sentiments of two very great men. The one an eminent divine: [11] "It is an equal rule," says he, "that by the same law, by virtue of which one may come to receive good freely, he should, upon the same terms, receive the contrary evil deservedly, upon offending. As Job said, 'Shall we receive good from God, and not evil?' so may we say here, should we have received the happy fruits of Adam's obedience if he had stood? And should we not receive the contrary, if he fell, through the guilt of his sin? If God had made the law only to have received evil upon his offending, who could have found fault? much less when he put him into an estate, which would have proved so happy for us, if he had not offended." And he goes on to vindicate the justice of God, in constituting Adam our federal head and representative, by the following similitude: "Suppose," says he, "a king should raise up a man, out of nothing, to a great and noble condition, which he also gave him, not for his own person only, but for his seed for ever, might he not make this covenant with him, that if he turned traitor, he should forfeit all for himself, and his posterity likewise be made slaves? And would not this law justly take hold of them, though they were not then born? Yes, God will justify his proceedings by this course in the world, generally in all kingdoms; which shows, that it is the law of nature, and that there is a justice in it; for the law makes the blood of a nobleman, guilty of treason, tainted till restored." The other is an eminent lawyer, [12] who was well skilled in the nature of laws and penalties, and the reasons of them: "God made man righteous at first," says he, "and gave him a righteous law; and, inasmuch as man owed an infinite subjection to the Author of his being, he owed an exact obedience to this law of his Maker: yet God was pleased to give him this law, not only as the rule of his obedience, but as a covenant of life and death, wherein the first man made a stipulation for himself and his posterity; and this was just, for he had in himself the race of all mankind. All succeeding generations are but pieces of Adam, who had not, or could have, their being but from him, and so it was but reasonable and just for him to contract for all his posterity; and as it was just, in respect of the person contracting, so it was in respect of the manner of the contract. The law, which was his covenant, was a just and righteous law; a law suitable to the endowments and power of his nature. Again, the blessedness which, by his obedience he was to hold, was not of his own creating or obtaining; it was the free gift of God; and it is but reasonable that the Lord of this gift might give it in what manner he pleased; and it could not be unjust, that the Lord who gave him this blessedness, should give it him under what conditions he pleased; but he gave it him under most reasonable and just conditions, viz. an obedience to a most just and reasonable law, which suited with the ability and perfection of his nature. Therefore when, upon the breach of the covenant by man, he withdrew that blessedness from him and his posterity, he did no more than what was most just for him to do. Thus we stand guilty of that sin which our first father committed, and are deprived of that blessedness and life which our first father had, and the privation of that blessedness and immortality is death." Thus admirably does that very great man clear the justice of God in this affair, and let us see that it is exactly conformable to the laws of reason and equity. I will only add, that if this course yet seems severe, let it be considered, that God has been pleased, out of his abundant goodness, to establish the same rule and method for our salvation and recovery. My text tells us, that "as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." God has ordained Christ in our nature to be a second Adam; he is all along, in this discourse, considered by the apostle as a public person, and federal head and representative, as the first Adam was; he sustains the persons of all that were given to him by the Father; and God is graciously pleased to reckon what was done by him as done by them, as he looks upon what was done by Adam as done by us; and life and righteousness are conveyed from the one to all true believers, his spiritual seed, as sin and death are conveyed from the other, to all his natural posterity. So that here is no just ground of complaint, since there is sufficient compensation made by Christ for what we lost in Adam, and the mighty benefit redounds to us, in the same way too, that Adam's sin does; for as this is imputed to us, to condemnation, so is the righteousness of Christ to justification of life.

APPLICATION.

From the whole we may observe, that the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin is no novel doctrine, but a part of primitive Christianity. It was, indeed, acknowledged by the Jews, as the learned Buxtorf has proved, by several testimonies out of their writers, and as bishop Burnet, in his exposition of the ninth article, allows there is good reason to believe, although he reckons it one of the odd things found amongst the Cabbalists. But it is plain, from this discourse of the apostle, that it was an article of primitive Christianity; and that it was the sentiment of the primitive church, may be proved, not only by citations [13] from particular fathers, but the concurrent testimony of an African Synod, held in the year 254, and in which were present three-score and six bishops. A question was proposed to them concerning the time of the baptism of infants, Whether it might be done before the eighth day after their birth, according to the law of circumcision? The Synod agreed that it might; and, amongst their reasons, they have these words to our purpose: "An infant is not to be prohibited from this grace, who, being but just born, is guilty of no sin, but of original, which he contracted from Adam, who ought the more readily to be received to the remission of sins, because not his own but another's sins are remitted to him." And this, to be sure, is the good old Protestant doctrine, which, at the Reformation, was rescued from that darkness and corruption under which it lay obscured in the times of Popery. And this, many think, is what the Church of England means, when, in her ninth Article, she asserts original sin to deserve God's wrath and damnation. Let us therefore endeavour to confirm our faith in, and hold fast this doctrine, and not suffer ourselves to be moved from it, by the slight and cunning craftiness of any who lie in wait to deceive. Let us learn, from hence, to be deeply humbled before God, for that first act of disobedience, which has involved us all in guilt and ruin. Since we are all by that act made sinners, we must all necessarily be children of wrath by nature; and therefore let us not dare to murmur and repine against God, but acknowledge the righteousness of that sentence, which has passed upon us, and justify God under all the evils and afflictions we are exposed to, or exercised with. Abstracting the consideration of the corruption of our natures, and our manifold actual transgressions, there is enough in that first sin, and our concernment in it, to vindicate the equity of the divine proceedings, in the greatest afflictive evils that befall us here. Hereby all the world is justly become guilty before God, and that is reason sufficient why every mouth should be stopped. Let this then fill our souls with an holy admiration of and thankfulness for the wisdom and grace of God, in providing a second Adam, by whose obedience we may be made righteous, as by Adam's disobedience we were made sinners. And as what has been said shows us our need of Christ, so it should make us fervent in praying to God, for the blessed Spirit, to reveal Christ to us, and work in us that faith, by which we may be united to him, that, being found in him, we may not only be acquitted from the guilt of the first man's disobedience, but may be brought, through the abundance of his grace, and the gift of righteousness, to reign in life, by one, Jesus Christ our Lord;

SERMON II.

Psalm 2:5.

Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in Sin did my mother Conceive me.

This is one of David's penitential psalms, and the occasion of it was his sin with Bathsheba, as we may see in the title, "To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." The story we have at large recorded in his history. 2 Sam. xi. 12. It was a very heinous and complicated wickedness, of which he had been guilty, adultery and murder, and yet he is supposed to have continued in it for a considerable time, without any expressions of remorse or sorrow for it, till God sent Nathan to convince him of, and reprove him for it: but his conscience being, by this means awakened, he became truly humbled, and, as a testimony of his unfeigned repentance and sorrow for what he had done, composed this penitential hymn, wherein he is very earnest in praying to God for pardon and mercy, and justifies God, and takes shame to himself; by a free and open confession of his sin. He not only penitently acknowledges the particular crime he had committed, with the aggravations of it, and thereby justifies God in the sentence passed upon him, verse 3, 4: but he follows the streams up to the spring head, and laments his original sin, and natural corruption, in the words of my text; "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." It is as if he had said, "This is not the only sin which I have reason to acknowledge and bewail before thee; for this filthy stream leads me to a corrupt fountain: this heinous crime, although drawn out by external temptation, was, indeed, the proper fruit of my own vile nature, which, without the restraints of thy providence or grace, will incline and dispose me to commit these and ten thousand other sins, as occasions offer themselves: not that I mention this in excuse of what I have done; no, this innate proneness to evil ought, and, if I had duly considered it, would have made me more watchful against the temptation, and more diligent to suppress those bad inclinations, which I knew to be so natural, that I brought them into the world with me. I confess it therefore as an aggravation of my sin and folly in dallying with the temptation, and venturing amongst the sparks with such tinder in my heart, and desire to humble myself before thee for it, and implore thy pardon and mercy." So that it is his natural corruption, which is commonly called original sin, because it is as ancient as our original, and because it is the original of all our actual transgressions, that he here confesses and bewails. This is excepted against by some. The learned Grotius thinks there is an hyperbole in the words, and gives us this as the sense: Non nune tantum not now only, but I have often sinned, a pueritia mea, from my childhood; as if he only took occasion, from this great crime to confess his other former actual transgressions. But the expressions are too strong to admit this gloss; nor should we relinquish the literal sense of words in Scripture, and have recourse to figures, without a plain necessity, whereas none can be pretended here, unless it be to serve an hypothesis. The Pelagians and Socinians endeavour to avoid the force of this text, and the argument contained in it, for the proof of the corruption of nature, by pretending that David here only confessed his parents' sinfulness, in begetting and conceiving him, and not his own natural sinfulness, as begotten and conceived: but this is a very forced interpretation; for the word, which we render, I was shapen, and which respects not his parents' acts in begetting, but, if we carry it so far, his formation in the womb, wherein they, as well as himself, were passive and not actors, will not bear this meaning. This sense is also inconsistent with his design, which is not to accuse others, but to confess his own sin, and implore pardon and mercy for it; and what an odd plea would this put into the mouth of such a penitent? Although I did not derive sin from my parents, yet they sinned in begetting me, therefore pardon my sin. Besides all this, there is, in truth, no foundation for this interpretation in the nature of things. The Scriptures give us no hint of any sin of this kind that David's parents were chargeable with. On the other hand, we find him mentioning the piety of his mother, that she was God's handmaid, and pleading his relation to her as such. Psalms lxxxvi. 16 cxvi. 16. It is therefore his own sin, and not the sin of his parents, that he here confesses, and it is the sin of his nature, and that which was derived to him by natural generation; I was shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin, i.e. from my birth, from my formation in the womb, when my nature was first conveyed to me, and I was constituted a man: as soon as my soul and body were united in the womb (for in that latitude we may understand these phrases of his being shaped and conceived) I was a sinner, having not only the guilt of Adam's first sin imputed to me, but having from him a defiled, polluted, corrupted nature derived to me. And thus the general current of interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, both ancient and modern, understand and expound it: and this being the true meaning of the words, I might observe from them several things useful for instruction; as, that the corruption of our nature is a sin; that it is the corrupt fountain from whence all actual transgressions flow; that in the confession of our actual sins, we should be led by these streams to acknowledge and bewail this corrupt fountain of them, and the like.

It is certain, that in Scripture this general corruption is often mentioned; "God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," Jer. xvii. 9. It tells us, that "the imaginations of men's thoughts are only evil continually," Gen. vi. 5. And lest we should think this description only belonged to the antediluvian sinners, who had filled the earth with violence, the Lord repeats it again after the flood, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," Gen. viii. 21. It informs us that there is "no man that lives and sins not;" that "there is none good, no, not one; that in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwells no good thing; and that they who are in the flesh cannot please God:" where, by flesh, is meant the natural state of mankind, according to those words of our Saviour; "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," John iii. 6. This, some think, is particularly meant by the sin of the world, which Christ, the Lamb of God, came to take away, it having overspread the whole world; but to be sure it is what is intended by "the sin that dwells in us; by the law in our members, which wars against the law of our minds; by the flesh that lusts against the spirit; and by the old man which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts." These, with many other places of Scripture, to the same purpose, when they are joined to the universal experience of all mankind, are sufficient to settle this point, that, in fact, this corruption is derived to our whole race, and the contagion is spread over all. And, indeed, if it was not thus, what need had there been of a Saviour, and what necessity of regeneration? When we are told, that "Christ is made to us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30, may we not justly infer that we have no wisdom, no righteousness, no sanctification of our own, and that we are not in a capacity to redeem ourselves from the slavery of sin? And when our Saviour says, "Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and adds this as the reason of it, that "what is born of the flesh, is flesh: and what is born of the spirit, is spirit;" as it shows the absolute necessity of our being born again, so it is an undeniable proof of original corruption; for unless we were corrupted in our first, there would be no need of a second, a new birth.

But this is not all; for we are not only all infected with this sin, but my text informs us, that we are tainted with it from our birth and formation; "I was shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin." I was a sinner as soon as I was a creature, as soon as I was formed; not only from my birth, and being brought forth, as the first word is rendered in other places, Job xv. 7, and xxxix. 1, Prov. viii. 24, 25, but from my being warmed, as the other word signifies, and is rendered in the margin; as soon as I was enlivened in the womb, and my soul was united to my body. This corruption is not contracted only by imitation, nor does it become habitual by custom, or repetition of acts, but it is rooted in the soul, and diffused through it, as soon as the soul is united to the body, and it discovers itself as soon as it is capable either of imitation or acting. God himself testifies not only that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, Gen. viii. 21, but that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, the first that arises in him is evil, only evil, and continually evil, chap. vi. 5. Thus we are told, that man is born not only a vain empty creature, that has nothing in him, but a foolish, stupid, willful, ungovernable creature, a wild ass's colt, as averse to all that is good and holy, as he is ignorant of all spiritual things, Job ix. 12. To the same purpose the Psalmist informs us, that "the wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies," Psal. lviii. 3. They brought with them into the world natures estranged from God, alienated from the divine life and all goodness; and no wonder then they go astray from God and their duty as soon as they are capable of acting. The foolishness bound up in their hearts presently appears, with the first operations of reason; and they speak lies as soon as they are able to speak at all. And thus what the prophet upbraids Israel with, is applicable to particular persons; "They were called transgressors from the womb," Isa. xlviii. 8. The words are spoken of them politically considered; they were prone to idolatry from their first formation into a people, and brought with them out of Egypt a strange addictedness to that sin; but they hold true of every one of us. We may all be called transgressors from the womb, being born children of disobedience; yea, not only from the time of our coming out of the womb, but of our being formed in it. When we first have the nature of men communicated to us, then we may be called transgressors; that which conveys our nature, and constitutes us men, conveying sin, and constituting us sinners. And this may be in part the meaning of the apostle, when he tells us that "we are by nature children of wrath," Eph. ii. 2. "We (says he, we Jews as well as you Gentiles, which terms then comprehended all mankind) are children of wrath;" and this not by custom and imitation, but by nature; and one man is as much so by nature as another. We are not only really and truly so, which those who deny original corruption pretend is all that is meant by nature, but we are born so. As soon as we began to exist, we were children of wrath, and liable to the displeasure of the Most High, having not only the guilt of the first sin righteously imputed to us, but being naturally inclined to what is sinful and vicious, and polluted and defiled with it, even from our birth. So plentiful an evidence does the Scripture give of this truth, that all mankind are tainted with original corruption, and that from their birth and formation. But,

III. I shall inquire whence this is, and what is the reason and cause of it. The general answer to this inquiry is, that Adam having, by his rebellion, lost his primitive rectitude, and contracted an universal corruption, it is from him derived to all his natural posterity. That this was really the case with Adam himself; I might take for granted, as generally acknowledged, was it not for a bold stroke of a certain writer, in favour of infidelity; who, pleading for reason, as a sufficient guide in matters of religion, asserts, that Adam's discerning faculty was so far from being weakened and impaired, that it is represented as being rather improved by his transgression; and this because it is said, "The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil," Gen. iii. 7, 22. But that this is not meant of any advances in true knowledge, is agreed by the general current of interpreters. "Their eyes were opened," or their consciences were awakened and convinced, and "they knew that they were naked," or stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their innocent state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God. Or if, by their being naked, is meant their being without clothes, as indeed seems by their making themselves coverings, their knowing this must intend, not that they were ignorant of it before, but that they found themselves under a necessity of being clothed, which they did not discover till now, as a learned man [14] explains it, who makes it an evidence and effect of the corruption of their natures: and it is plain, from the sacred history, that it was such a knowledge of their nakedness, as filled them with shame and fearful apprehensions of the anger of God; "I was afraid," said the man, "because I was naked, and I hid myself;" Gen. iii. 10; and hereby they came to know experimentally the good they had lost, and the evil they had done and subjected themselves to. They found such an alteration in themselves; they saw such uncomely motions and disorders in their bodies, and felt such disorder in their spirits, "a law in their members warring against the law of their minds," as they had never been conscious of before, and such as filled them with shame and fear; and consequently this was a proof that their natures were corrupted and depraved.

This being certain, and we being in him, both as our natural and moral principle, we, by propagation from him, derive a corrupted depraved nature, full of impotency, rebellion, and disorder, and this as soon as we are become children of Adam, as soon as our souls are united to our bodies; for it is this union which constitutes us the children of Adam. In him the fountain was poisoned, and all the streams partake of the infection. Hence it is said, that "Adam begat a son, in his own likeness, after his image," Gen. v. 3. Adam was made in the image of God, but having, by his sin, lost the divine image, he begat a son, not in that, but in his own likeness; sinful and defiled like himself; not only a man like himself; consisting of soul and body, but a sinner like himself; guilty and obnoxious, degenerate and corrupt. He propagated, and conveyed to his descendants, that guilt and corruption he had himself contracted. [15] This Job was not unacquainted with, as appears from that question of his, Job xv. 14: "What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" Or if any suppose that uncleanness is here charged upon man comparatively only, and with respect to the transcendent purity of God, which is a very different thing from the uncleanness derived from the fall, there is another passage that will not admit of this construction, Job xiv. 1, &c., where, having presented the miserable condition of man, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble," &c, he expostulates the case with God, "Dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest thou me into judgment with thee? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" As if he should say, Wilt thou be extreme to mark all my errors? Is purity to be expected in a man born of a woman, who is, by the very constitution of his birth, unclean? This is an evidence, says an ingenious author, that this ancient writer was sensible of the evil consequences of the fall, upon the whole race of man, and that we are all corrupt by descent and inheritance. All this is, I think, plain from Scripture; and this being certain, if we cannot account for the modus, or manner of conveying original corruption, this should by no means weaken our belief of the thing itself. How it is conveyed, is one of the most difficult questions in the whole scheme of divinity; but no man has reason to deny matter of fact, merely because he cannot conceive how it is. There is an infinity of things in the world of nature which are obvious to our senses, that we can no more account for the modus of, than we can of this. Having therefore proved the thing itself, we need not be over solicitous about, nor over nice in inquiring into the manner of it. Thus much is certain, that it is the universal and unchangeable law of nature, that every thing produces its like, not only in regard of the same nature, that is propagated from one individual to another, without a change of the species, but in respect of the qualities with which that nature is eminently affected. This is visible in the several kinds of creatures in the world: they all preserve the nature of the principle from whence they are derived, and retain the vein of their original, and the quality of their extraction; [16] "Whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh."

APPLICATION.

Now to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one God, be all glory and honour, henceforth and for evermore. Amen.

ENDNOTES:

[1] Preface to his Treatise on Indwelling Sin.

[2] Mr. Ridgely on Original Sin.

[3] Blount's Oracles of Reason, p.10.

[4] Glanvil of the Pre-ezistence of Souls, c. 2.

[5] _________________ In me all Posterity stands cursed! Fair patrimony, That I must leave ye, sons !-MILTON.

[6] Whitby in Rom. V.12.

[7] Mr. Ridgely on Originat Sin.

[8] Socinni de Servatore, Par. 4, cap. 6.

[9] Mr. Ridgely on Originat Sin. See also Bishop Bull's Ser. Vol.111. Disc. 5.

[10] Bishop Burnet's Exposition of the Ninth Article of the Church of England.

[11] Dr. Goodwin, Vol.111. p. 18.

[12] Lord Chief Justice Hale's Meditation upon the Lord's prayer.

[13] I shall only give a remarkable testimony of Chrysostom: The reason of the apostle's saying so often [by One] is, that when a Jew shall ask, How should the world be saved by the well doing of One (the righteousness of Christ 1) thou mightest be able to say to him, How should the world be condemned by one Adam's sinning. By which words (says Dr. Hammond, on Psal. Ii. 5,) it appears that this doctrine of the whole world's being under condemnation for the sin of Adam, was such as he thought no Jew would doubt of, for else it could be no fit means to silence his objection against the redemption of the whole world by Christ.

[14] Dr. Thomas Burnet's Demonstration of True Religion, Vol. II. p.52, 53.

[15] It is remarkable that the text does here not speak of Abel, who died without issue; nor of Cain, all whose progeny was drowned in the flood; but of Seth, by whom all mankind has hitherto been continued in the world; which shows that none are exempted from it. -Polhill's Speculum Theologise in Christo, p.217, 2l8.

[16] Do we not every day see a great resemblance between children and their parents, not only in the lineaments of their face, the motions and gestures of their body, but in the most signal and reigning qualities of their minds? The pride and frowardness, humility and meekness, covetousness and ambition; and even the nicer particularities of men's very humours, are oflentimes seen in those children who lust their parents before they were capable of imitation: and therefore were derived down from them by an unseen means as their original corruption. Dr. Delaune's Sermons on Original Sin, p.22.

[17] Mr. Ridgley's Doctrine of Original Sin, p.

[18] Mr. Flavel's Treatise of the Soul of Man.

[19] Such objections spring out of equal ignorance and pride, and borrow all their force from no wiser or modester a supposition than that of man's omniscience. Yet, as wild and extravagant a principle as it is, the extent of it reaches very far; and it serves the depraved sons of Adam against all the doctrines which they are not willing should he true. It is the sole basis on which infidelity is built, and a most proper foundation indeed for such a superstructure. Thus these men, before they are aware, confirm the truth in question, by so unreasonably opposing it; by this means discovering themselves to be very apparent monuments of the ruins of human nature.-Dr. Delaune's Sermon of Original Sin, before Sir Richard Hoare, Lord Mayor, p. 21.