Of Original Sin And The Corruption Of Nature
Chapter 7
OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE
CORRUPTION OF NATURE
Herod the Great, imparting to the Jews his advice to rebuild the temple, they greatly feared he would never be able to accomplish his intention.190 Like an unwise builder, having demolished the old before he sat down to account whether he would be able to erect the new, the Jews would have been deprived of a temple by his proposal. Therefore, to satisfy their concerns, he resolved as he took down any part of the old, to quickly erect a portion of the new in its place. In the same way, the Arminians have determined to demolish the building of divine providence, grace, and favor, by which men have up to now ascended into heaven. But fearing we would be troubled by finding ourselves suddenly deprived of what we reposed our confidence in for happiness, they have erected by degrees a Babylonish tower in its place, whose top, they would persuade us, will reach to heaven. First, therefore, they bring out the foundation-stones, crying, "Hail, hail," to them; and they throw them on the sandy, rotten ground of our own natures.
Now, previously some wise master-builders had discovered this ground to be unfit as the base of such a lofty erection, because a corrupt issue of blood and filth arose in the middle of it, and overspread the whole platform. And so, to encourage men to associate in this desperate attempt, they proclaim to all that there is no such evil fountain in the plain which they have chosen for the foundation of their proud
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building. They claim it does not set itself up against the knowledge of God in plain terms. Having rejected God's providence as the origin of any goodness in our actions, and God's predestination as the cause of whatever moral and spiritual goodness may clothe us, they endeavor to draw the praise of both providence and predestination toward the rectitude of their own nature, and the strength of their own endeavors.
But this attempt, in the case of predestination, is thought by them to be altogether vain, because of the disability and corruption of nature, and because of original sin that has been propagated to all of us by our first parents. By these, they claim, predestination has become wholly void of integrity and holiness; and all of us have become wise and able to do evil, but have no power to do good; we have no understanding.
Therefore, they utterly reject this imputation of an inherent, original guilt, and demerit worthy of punishment. Rather, it is an enemy to our upright and well-deserving condition. And oh, that they were as able to root it out of the hearts of all men, so that it would not be there evermore, as they have been able to persuade the heads of so many that it was never there at all!
If anyone wanted to know how considerable this article concerning original sin has been accounted in the church of Christ, let him only consult the writings of St. Augustine, Prosper, Hilary, Fulgentius, and any of those learned fathers whom God stirred up to resist, and enabled to overcome, the spreading Pelagian heresy. Or look at the many councils, edicts, and decrees of emperors, in which that heretical doctrine which denies original corruption, is condemned, cursed, and disproved. Now, among the many motives they had to proceed so severely against this heresy, one was especially inculcated191 that deserves our consideration:
It overthrew the necessity of Christ's coming into the world to redeem mankind. It is sin alone that makes a Savior necessary; and will
Christians tolerate any error such as this, which by direct consequence, implies that the coming of Jesus Christ into the world was needless?
My purpose for the present is not to allege any testimonies of this kind;
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but, staying close to my first intention, my purpose is to show how far in this article, as well as others, the Arminians have apostatized from the pure doctrine of the word of God, from the consent of orthodox divines, and from the confession of the Church of England.
In the ninth article of our church, which concerns original sin, I observe four things especially: First. That the fault and corruption of the nature of every man is an inherent evil. Secondly. That it is not subject or conformable to the law of God, but even after baptism, it has in itself the nature of sin. Thirdly. That by it we are averse from God, and inclined to all manner of evil. Fourthly. That it deserves
God's wrath and damnation. All of these are frequently and evidently taught in the word of God, and every one of them is denied by the Arminians, as it may appear by these instances in some of their writings:
First. That original sin is inherent sin and the pollution of our nature, having a proper guilt of its own, which makes us responsible to the wrath of God; it is not a bare imputation of another's fault to us as his posterity. Because it reflects on us all with a charge of native imbecility and insufficiency to good, it is quite rejected by these self-idolizers.
"Infants are simply in that estate in which Adam was before his fall,"192 says Venator.193 "Nor is it at all to be considered whether they are the children of believers or of heathens and infidels; for infants, as infants, all have the same innocence."194 They say this jointly in their
Apology. Even more plainly, "It can be no fault with which we are born."195 In this last expression, with one dash of their pens, these bold innovators have quite overthrown a sacred verity, an apostolic, catholic, and fundamental article of the Christian religion. But, truly, to me there are no stronger arguments of the sinful corruption of our nature than to see such wicked outworkings196 of unsanctified hearts.
Let us look, then, to the word of God which confounds this Babylonish197 design.
The nature of man at first was created pure and holy, after the image of God. It was endowed with such a rectitude and righteousness
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as was necessary and appropriate to bring it to that supernatural end to which it was ordained. It is now altogether corrupted. It has become abominable, sinful, and averse from goodness, and this corruption or concupiscence is originally inherent in us. It is derived from our first parents, as plentifully delivered in holy writ, as what chiefly compels us to self-denial, and drives us to Christ. "Behold, I was formed in iniquity; and in sin my mother conceived me," says David in Psalm
51:5. For the praise of God's goodness towards him, David begins with a confession of his native perverseness, and of the sin in which he was wrapped before he was born. Nor was this peculiar to him alone; he did not have it from the particular iniquity of his immediate progenitors, but by an ordinary propagation from the common parent of us all; though in some of us, by this Pelagian attempt to hide the disease, Satan has made it almost incurable. For even those infants of whom the Arminians boast innocence, are unclean in the verdict of St.
Paul, 1 Cor 7:14,198 unless they are sanctified by an interest in the promise of the covenant; no unclean thing shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. "The weakness of the members of infants is what is innocent, and not their souls." 199 That is, they lack nothing, except that the members of their bodies are not yet ready instruments of sin.
They are sinful not only by external denomination – accounted sinful only because of the imputation of Adam's actual transgression to them
– but they all have an uncleanness in them by their very nature, Job 14:4, from which they must be "cleansed with the washing of water by the word," Eph 5:20. Their whole nature is overspread with such a pollution that is proper only to inherent sin, and does not accompany imputed sin. We may see this in the example of our Savior, who was pure, immaculate, holy, and undefiled – yet "the iniquity of us all" was imputed to him – from which we have those phrases about "washing away sin," Acts 22:16; and "cleansing filth," 1 Peter 3:21, Titus 3:5.
There is something in them, as soon as they are born, that excludes them from the kingdom of heaven; for unless they are also born again of the Spirit, they shall not enter into it, John 3:5.
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Secondly. The opposition that is made between the righteousness of Christ and the sin of Adam, Rom 5, which is the proper seat of this doctrine, shows that there is an inbred sinful corruption in our nature.
The sin of Adam holds such a relation to sinners that it proceeds from him by natural propagation; just as the righteousness of Christ proceeds to those who are born again of him by spiritual regeneration.
But we are truly, intrinsically, and inherently sanctified by the Spirit and grace of Christ. Therefore, being so often called "sinners" in this chapter (because of this original sin), there is no reason why we should dismiss it, as if we were concerned only with an external denomination; for once the comparison and its analogy is correctly instituted,200 it quite overthrows the solitary imputation of Adam's sin.
Thirdly. All those places of Scripture which assert that our nature is prone to all evil, that we have an utter disability to do any good, and that we have a wretched opposition to the power of godliness – all of which are furnished from the womb – confirm the same truth. But I will have occasion to speak about these places later.
Fourthly. The flesh, in the Scripture phrase, is a quality (if I may say so) that is inherent in us; for that, along with its concupiscence,201 is opposed to the Spirit and his holiness, which is certainly inherent in us.202 Now, the whole man by nature is flesh; for "what is born of the flesh is flesh," John 3:6 – it is an inhabiting thing, a thing that "dwells" within us, Rom 7:17. In brief, this vitiosity,203 sinfulness, and corruption of our nature is laid open, First. By all those places which throw on our nature itself an aspersion of guilt, or deserving punishment, or pollution; as in Eph 2:1, 3 we are "dead in trespasses and sins," being "by nature the children of wrath, even as others," being wholly encompassed by a "sin that easily besets us." Secondly. By those which fix this original pravity in the heart, will, mind, and understanding, as in Eph 4:18; Rom 12:2; Gen 6:5. Thirdly. By those which positively decipher this natural depravity, as in 1 Cor 2:14; Rom
8:7 – or, Fourthly. Those which place it in the flesh, or in the old man, as in Rom 6:6; Gal 5:16. So that it is not a bare imputation of someone
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else's fault, but it is an intrinsic and adjacent corruption of our nature itself, that we call original sin. But, alas! It seems we carve too large a portion for ourselves, in those things with which we will not be contented.
The Arminians deny all such imputation. They say it is too heavy a charge for the pure, unblamable condition in which they are brought into this world. They deny, I say, that they are guilty of Adam's sin, as if "sinning in him," or that his sin is any way imputed to us. This is their second assault upon the truth of this article of faith.
"Adam sinned in his own proper person, and there is no reason why God should impute his sin to infants," says Boraeus.204 The nature of the first covenant, the right and power of God, the comparison instituted by the apostle between Adam and Christ, the divine constitution, whereby Adam was appointed to be the head, fountain, and origin of all human kind, are no reasons at all to persuade him of it. "For it is against equity," says their Apology, "that one should be accounted guilty for a sin that is not his own – that he should be reputed nocent205 who, in regard to his own will, is truly innocent."206
And here, Christian reader, behold plain Pelagianism thrust upon us without either welt 207 or guard; men all of a sudden are made pure and truly innocent, notwithstanding all the natural pollution and corruption which Scripture everywhere proclaims they are furnished with. Nor is the reason they intimate of any value – that their wills did not assent to it – which they plainly urged shortly before. "It is," they say, "against the nature of sin that it should be counted as a sin to anyone who did not commit it by his own proper will."208 This being all they have to say, they repeat it over and over in this form: "It must be voluntary, or it is not sin." But I say this has no force at all; for first,
St. John, in his most exact definition of sin, does not require voluntariness for its nature, but only an obliquity, a deviation from the rule. It is an anomy – a discrepancy from the law, which whether it is voluntary or not, does not matter much. But it is sure enough that such a repugnancy to the law of God is in our nature. So that,
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secondly, if originally we are free from a voluntary actual transgression, yet we are not free from a habitual voluntary digression and exorbitance209 from the law. But, thirdly, in respect to our wills, we are not innocent either; for we all sinned in Adam, as the apostle affirms.
(Rom 5:12) Now, all sin is voluntary, say the Remonstrants, and therefore Adam's transgression was our voluntary sin also, and that is so in various respects. I answer first, that his voluntary act is imputed to us as ours, by reason of the covenant which was made with him on our behalf. But because this consists in an imputation, it must be extrinsic to us; therefore, secondly, we say that Adam, being the root and head of all human kind, and we are all branches from that root, and we are all parts of that body of which he was the head, his will may be said to be ours. We were then all that one man,210 – we were all in him, and we had no other will but his. So that, though this is extrinsic to us when we are considered as particular persons, yet it is intrinsic because we are all parts of one common nature. As in Adam we sinned, so in him we had a will to sin. Thirdly, original sin is a defect of nature, and not of this or that particular person. 211 Alvarez grounds this difference of actual and original sin in this: that the one is always committed by the proper will of the sinner; and the other requires only the will of our first parent, who was the head of human nature. Fourthly. It is hereditary and natural; in no way is it involuntary, or put into us against our wills. It possesses our wills and inclines us to voluntary sins.
I see no reason, then, why Corvinus should affirm, as he does, "That it is absurd, that by one man's disobedience many should be made actually disobedient,"212 unless he did it purposely to contradict St.
Paul, who taught us that "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners," Rom 5:19. Paulus ait, Corvinus negat; eligite cui credatis – choose whom you will believe, St. Paul or the Arminians. The sum of their endeavor in this particular is to clear the nature of man from being in any way guilty of Adam's actual sin, or from being then in Adam as a member and part of the body of which he was the head, or
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from being liable to an imputation of guilt by reason of that covenant which God made with us all in Adam. So that, denying (as you saw before) all inherent corruption and depravity of nature – and now denying all participation by any means in Adam's transgression – I think they cast a great aspersion on Almighty God, however he dealt with Adam for his own particular sin, for casting us, his most innocent posterity (they claim), out of paradise. It seems a hard case that, having no deviation or sin in our own nature to deserve it, and having no interest in Adam's disobedience, whose obedience had been the means of conveying so much happiness to us, we should still be involved in so great a punishment as we are. For if we are not now by birth under a great curse and punishment, the Arminians will never be able to persuade any poor soul [of his need for Christ], who ever heard of paradise or the garden where God first placed Adam. And though all the rest, in their judgment, is no great matter, but merely an infirmity and weakness of nature (or some such thing), yet whatever it is, they confess that it lights on us as well as him. "We confess," they say, "that the sin of Adam may be imputed to his posterity, inasmuch as God would have them all born liable to that punishment which Adam incurred by his sin, or permitted that evil which was inflicted on Adam to descend on them."213
Now, whatever this punishment may be, however small, yet if we have no demerit of our own, nor any interest in Adam's sin, it is such an act of injustice that we must reject it from the Most Holy, with a "God forbid." Far be it from the Judge of all the world to punish the righteous with the ungodly. (Gen 18:25) If God should impute the sin of Adam to us, and then pronounce that we are liable to the curse it deserves – when we have a pure, sinless, and unspotted nature – this could scarcely be reconciled with God's proceeding in justice with the sons of men, "The soul that sins shall die;" (Ezek 18:20) which clearly grants an impunity to all who are not tainted with sin. Sin and punishment, though they are sometimes separated by God's mercy
(pardoning the sin and so not inflicting the punishment), yet it is never
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by his justice, inflicting the punishment where the sin is not found.
Imputed sin, by itself alone, without an inherent guilt, was never punished in anyone but Christ. (2 Cor 5:21) The unsearchableness of God's love and justice, in laying the iniquity of us all on him who had no sin, is an exception to that general rule by which God walks in dealing with the posterity of Adam. So if punishment is not due to us for a solely imputed sin, then much less can we justly be wrapped in such a curse and punishment as woful experience teaches us that we lie under, when it does not stand with the justice and equity of God to impute any iniquity to us at all. Now, the Arminians place the whole nature of original sin in this act of injustice with which they charge the Almighty.214 "We do not consider," they say, "original sin to be properly called a sin, that would make the posterity of Adam deserve the wrath of God; nor do we consider it an evil that is properly called a punishment; but it is only an infirmity of nature;" which they interpret as a kind of evil that, being inflicted on Adam, God allows to descend on his posterity. So all the depravation of nature, the pollution, guilt, and concupiscence we derive from our first parents, the imputation of Adam's actual transgression, is all limited to a small infirmity inflicted on poor innocent creatures.
But let them enjoy their own wisdom, which is earthly, sensual, and devilish. The Scripture is clear that the sin of Adam is the sin of us all, not only by propagation and communication (whereby it is not his singular fault, but something of the same nature that is derived to us), but also by an imputation of his actual transgression to us all – his singular disobedience is made ours by this means. The grounds of this imputation I touched on before, which may all be reduced to his being the common person and head of all our nature. This invests us with a double interest in his demerits: (1) as we were then in him and were parts of him; and (2) as he sustained the position of our whole nature in the covenant that God made with him. Both of these, according to the demands of God's justice, require that his transgression also be accounted as ours. St. Paul is plain, not only that "by one man's
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disobedience many were made sinners," (Rom 5:19) by the derivation of a corrupted nature, but also that "by one man's offense judgment came upon all" (verse 18). Even for his one sin, all of us are accounted to deserve judgment and condemnation; therefore, verse 12, he affirms that by one man sin and death entered the whole world; and that is because we have all sinned in him, which we in no other way do except that his transgression is accounted as ours in God's estimation. And the opposition the apostle makes there between Christ and his righteousness, and Adam and his disobedience, sufficiently evinces it; as may be apparent by this figure: 215
The whole similitude chiefly consists in the imputation of Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness – to the seed of Adam by nature, and to the seed of Christ by grace. But among Protestants (though some differ in the manner of their expressions) it is still without question that we are counted righteous for the righteousness of Christ; and therefore we are no less and undoubtedly accounted sinners by (or guilty of) the first sin of Adam.
I will not show their opposition to the truth in many more particulars concerning this article of original sin. This was long ago most excellently prevented using this very method: its antithesis to the Scripture and the orthodox doctrine of our church. This was done by the famously learned Master Reynolds, in his excellent treatise, "Of the Sinfulness of Sin." There he revealed their errors, fully answered their sophistic216 objections, and invincibly confirmed the truth from the word of God. I have shown already how they make what we call original sin to be no sin at all; they claim it is not inherent in us, nor imputed to us, nor is it truly called punishment. Only because our church says directly that original sin merits damnation, I will briefly show what the Arminians conceive to be the desert of it.
First. For Adam himself, they affirm "that the death threatened if he transgressed the covenant, and which was due him for it,217 was not temporal death – for he was subject to that before, by the primary constitution of his nature; nor was it such an eternal death as is
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accompanied with damnation or everlasting punishment." Why then, let us learn some new divinity here; for Christians up to now have believed that whatever may be comprised under the name of death
(together with its antecedents, consequents, and attendants), was threatened to Adam in this commination.218 And divines, until this day, can find only these two sorts of death in the Scripture [temporal and eternal], as penal219 to men, and it is properly called so. Shall we now be persuaded that it was neither of these that Adam was threatened with? It must be so if we believe the Arminians – neither one nor the other. But because Adam was created mortal, and he was subject to a temporal death, the sanction for his disobedience was the threat of the utter dissolution of his soul and body, or a reduction to their primitive nothingness. But what if someone will not take them at their word, and instead believes what St. Paul said, that death entered by sin; that if we had never sinned, we would never have died; that man in his state of innocence was, by God's constitution, free even from temporal death, and from all things directly conducive to it?
Secondly. That this death which was threatened to our first parents, also comprehended damnation of soul and body forevermore, and that there is not the least intimation in the word of God of their imagined dissolution. Why, I confess they have impudence enough, in various places, to beg that we would believe their assertions, but they never have confidence enough to venture once to prove them true. Now, those who make so slight of the desert of this sin in Adam himself, will hardly allow it to have any ill merit at all in his posterity.
"Whether anyone was ever damned for original sin, and adjudged to everlasting torments, is deservedly doubted. Indeed, we have no doubt in affirming that no one was ever so damned," says Corvinus.220 And he declares that this is not his sole opinion, by telling you no less of his master, Arminius. "It is most true," he says, "that Arminius teaches that it is perversely said that original sin makes a man guilty of death;"221 guilty of any death it would seem, whether temporal, eternal, or that annihilation which they dream of. And he spoke truly
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enough; Arminius does affirm it, adding this reason: "Because it is only the punishment of Adam's actual sin." 222 Now, what kind of punishment they make this out to be I showed you before. But truly I wonder, seeing they are so peremptory everywhere that the same thing cannot be a sin and a punishment, why then do they so often nickname this as an "infirmity of nature," and call it a sin; this thing which they suppose to be as far different from original sin as fire from water. Is it because they are unwilling, by renaming it, to contradict St.
Paul in express terms, never proposing it under any other denomination? Or, if they cannot get a sophistic elusion223 from St.
Paul by doing so, would Christians more plainly discern their heresy?
Or whatever other cause it may be, in this I am sure: they contradict themselves, notwithstanding that they agree full well in this: "That God rejects none for original sin only," as Episcopius speaks.224 And here, if you tell them that the question is not de facto what God does, but de jure what such sinners deserve, they tell us plainly: "That God will not destine any infants to eternal punishment for original sin, without their own proper actual sins; nor can he do so by right or in justice."225 So the children of Turks, Pagans, and similar infidels, strangers from the covenant of grace, dying in their infancy, are far happier than any Christian men who must undergo hard warfare against sin and Satan, who are in danger of finally falling away at the last hour, and who enter the kingdom of heaven through many difficulties – while they, without any further trouble, are quickly assumed into the kingdom of heaven for their innocence. Indeed, they are saved although they are not elected by God (for, as they affirm, he chooses none except for their faith, which they do not have); nor redeemed by Christ (for he died only for sinners – "he saves his people from their sins" – sins which they are not guilty of); nor sanctified by the Holy Ghost, all of whose operations they restrain to a moral persuasion, of which such infants are not capable subjects. It is not much to the honor of the blessed Trinity, that heaven should be
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furnished with those whom the Father never elected, the Son never redeemed, nor the Holy Ghost sanctified.
Thus you see what they make of this original depravity of our nature: it is at most an infirmity or languor – it is neither a sin, nor the punishment of sin properly so-called, nor yet is it a thing that deserves punishment as a sin. This last assertion, whether it is agreeable to Holy
Scripture or not, the following three observations will declare: – First. There is no confusion, no disorder, no vanity in the whole world, in any of God's creatures, that is not punishment of our sin in Adam. That great and almost universal ruin of nature, proceeding from the curse of God overgrowing the earth, and the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven, is the proper issue of Adam's transgression. It was of the great mercy of God that the whole frame of nature was not presently rolled up in darkness, and reduced to its primitive confusion. If we ourselves had been deprived of those remaining sparks of God's image in our souls, which distinguish us from the number of the beasts that perish – if we had all been born fools and void of reason – then by dealing so with some in particular, he shows us that it would only be justice to wrap us all in the same general misery. All things, when God first created them, were exceedingly good, and were thought to be good by the wisdom of God himself. But our sin compelled even that good and wise Creator to hate and curse the work of his own hands. "Cursed is the ground," he says to Adam, "for your sake; in sorrow you will eat of it all the days of your life; it will produce thorns and thistles for you," Gen 3:17-18.
From this came that heavy burden of "vanity," that "bondage of corruption," under which, to this day, "the whole creation groans and travails in pain" until it is delivered, Rom 8:20-22. Now, if our sin had such a strange malignant influence on those things which have no relation to us, except that they were created for our use, then surely it is by the great mercy of God that we ourselves are not quite confounded
– which still does not interpose itself, except that we are all surrounded by diverse sad effects of this iniquity, that we are actually lying under
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diverse pressing miseries, and are deservedly liable to everlasting destruction. So that, Secondly. Temporal death, with all its antecedents and attendants – all infirmities, miseries, sicknesses, wasting and destroying passions, penal casualties, and all evil that is condusive to it, or waiting on it – is a punishment for original sin. And this is not only because the first actual sin of Adam is imputed to us, but most of these are the proper issues of that native corruption and pollution of sin which is stirring and operative within us, and which produces such sad effects – our whole nature is thoroughly defiled by it. From this arise all the distortions and excesses226 of the soul by lusts, concupiscence, passions, blindness of mind, perverseness of will, inordinateness of affections, with which we are pressed and turmoiled – these are the proper issues of that inherent sin which possesses our whole soul.
It also has such an influence on the body – in disposing it to corruption and mortality – that it is the origin of all those infirmities, sicknesses, and diseases, which make us nothing but a shop for such miseries, and for death itself. Just as these and similar degrees are the steps which rapidly lead us into the road that tends towards it, so they are the direct, internal, and efficient causes of it – in subordination to the justice of Almighty God which, by such means, inflicts it as a punishment for our sins in Adam. Man before his fall was immortal, a keeper of his own everlastingness; though this was not in regard to the reason for which he was made, nor merely in respect to his living form, yet it is in regard to God's ordination. Death, to which man was not liable before, was threatened as a punishment for his sin: "In the day you eat of it you shall surely die;" the exposition of these words, given by God at the time he inflicted this punishment and pronounced that man was subject to mortality, clearly shows that it comprehended temporal death also: "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return." Our return to dust is nothing but the soul leaving the body, where before it was preserved from corruption. Further, St. Paul opposes that death we had by the sin of Adam, to the resurrection of the body by the
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power of Christ: "For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive," 1 Cor 15:21-22. The life which all shall receive by the power of Christ at the last day is essentially a reunion of soul and body; and therefore their separation is a thing we incurred by the sin of Adam. The same apostle also, in Rom 5, describes a universal reign of death over all, by reason of the first transgression. Even diseases, in the Scripture, are attributed to sin as their meritorious cause, John 5:14; 1
Cor 11:30; Rev 2:22. And, in respect to all of these, the mercy of God does not so interpose itself unless all the sons of men are in some way partakers of them.
Thirdly. The final desert of original sin, as our article says, is damnation – the wrath of God, to be poured out on us in eternal torments of body and soul. Also, many previous judgments of God are subservient to this end – such as the privation of original righteousness
(which he took and withheld upon Adam's throwing it away), spiritual desertion, permission of sin, with all other destroying depravations of our nature – as far as they are merely penal. Some of these are immediate consequents of Adam's singular actual transgression, such as the privation of original righteousness; others, such as damnation itself, are the proper effects of that derived sin and pollution which is in us all. There is none that is damned except for his own sin. When divines affirm that by Adam's sin we are guilty of damnation, they do not mean that any of us are actually damned for this particular act; but that by his sin, and our sinning in him, by God's most just ordination, we have contracted that exceeding depravity and sinfulness of nature which deserves the curse of God and eternal damnation. It must be an inherent uncleanness that actually excludes us from the kingdom of heaven, Rev 21:27.227 The apostle shows that this uncleanness in infants is not sanctified by an interest in the covenant. In brief, we are baptized for the "remission of sins," so that we may be saved, Acts
2:38.228 What is taken away by baptism, then, is what hinders our salvation; which is not the first sin of Adam that is imputed to us, but
Chapter 7: OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE
our own inherent lust and pollution. We cannot be washed, and cleansed, and purged from an imputed sin; this is done by the laver of regeneration. We have no need of cleansing from what lies upon us only by an external denomination; we may be said to be freed from it, or justified, but not purged. The soul, then, that is guilty of sin shall die, and that will be for its own guilt. If God were to condemn us for original sin only, it would not be for the imputation of Adam's fault, but for the iniquity of that portion of nature in which we are proprietaries.229
Now here, to close it all, observe that in this inquiry of the desert of original sin, the question is not, "What will be the certain lot of those who depart this life under the guilt of this sin only?" But the question is, "What does this hereditary and native corruption deserve in all those in whom it exists?" For, as St. Paul says, "We do not judge those who are outside" (especially infants), 1 Cor 5:13. But for the demerit of it in the justice of God, our Savior expressly affirms that, "unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God," John 3:3, 5. Let those who can, distinguish between not going to heaven, and going to hell; we do not find a third receptacle of souls in the Scripture. St. Paul also tells us that "by nature we are the children of wrath," Eph 2:3.
Both originally and actually, we are guilty of and liable to that wrath which is accompanied with a fiery indignation that shall consume the adversaries. Again, we are assured that no unclean thing shall enter into heaven, Rev 21:27; children are polluted with this hell-deserving uncleanness: and, therefore, unless it is purged by the blood of Christ, they have no interest in everlasting happiness. By this means, sin comes upon all to condemnation; and yet do we not peremptorily censure to hell all infants departing this world without the laver of regeneration – the ordinary means of waiving the punishment which is due for this pollution. That is the de facto question which we rejected before.
Indeed, there are two ways by which God saves such infants, snatching them like brands out of the fire:
Chapter 7: OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE
First. By giving them an interest in the covenant, if their immediate or remote parents have been believers. He is a God of them and of their seed, extending his mercy to a thousand generations of those that fear him.230
Secondly. By his grace of election, which is most free, and is not tied to any conditions; by which I have no doubt but that God takes many to himself in Christ whose parents never knew or had despised the gospel. And this is the doctrine of our church, agreeable to the Scripture, affirming that the desert of original sin is God's wrath and damnation. How opposite the Arminian doctrine is to both of these, may be apparent from these:
S.S.
Lib. Arbit.
"By the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation," Rom 5:18.
"Adam sinned in his own proper person only, and there is no reasonwhy God should impute that sin to infants,"
Boraeus.
"By one man's disobedience many were made sinners," Rom 5:19.
"It is absurd that by one man's disobedience many should be made actually disobedient," Corvinus.
"Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin my mother conceived me,"
Psalm 51:5.
"Infants are simply in that estate in which Adam was before his fall," Venator.
"Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy," 1 Cor 7:14. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one," Job 14:4. "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," John 3:3. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh,"
John 3:6.
"Nor is it to be considered whether they are the children of believers or of heathens; for all infants have the same innocence," Rem. Apol. "That which we have by birth can be no evil of sin, because to be born is plainly involuntary,"
Idem.
"By nature the children of wrath, even as others," Eph 2:3. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned," in him, Rom 5:12.
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) no good thing dwells," chap.
7:18.
"Original sin is neither a sin properly so called, which should make the posterity of Adam guilty of God's wrath, nor a punishment of any sin on them," Rem.
Apol. "It is against equity that one should be accounted guilty of a sin that is not his own, that he should be judged nocent who in regard of his own will is truly innocent," Idem.
Chapter 7: OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE
"In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die," Gen 2:17. "For as in Adam all die, even so," etc., 1 Cor 15:22. "By nature the children of wrath," Eph 2:3. "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defiles," Rev 21:27.
"God neither does nor can in justice appoint any to hell for original sin," Rem.
Apol. "It is perversely spoken, that original sin makes anyone guilty of death," Armin. "We have no doubt in affirming that no one was ever damned for original sin," Corv.