Chapter VI
That there is no necessity of asserting original sin to be a positive quality in our
soids, since the privation of righteousness is enough to infect the soul with all
that is evil.
These being declared to be the true adequate grounds of all the sinfulness
that is boiled up to its greatest height in man s nature, then there is no
necessity to suppose, as some have done, original sin to be in its own
essence, and, as considered by the understanding, as apart from the soul which it is in, to be a positive quality come in the room of original righteous
ness, as heat into water when cold is expelled, to inflame and provoke it unto
evil; for if the bare deprivement of original righteousness from the soul, still
supposed to continue active and desirous of happiness, and having still a
principle of self-love left unextinguished in it, if this may be a full and ade
quate cause of all the sinfulness that is in man s desires, w^hat need we feign and excogitate any positive quality superadded over and above, and besides
all these, to whet and inflame the soul to evil ? There is no necessity of
doing so, because, frmtra fit per jrtura, quod fieri potest per pandora, it is
frivolous to do that by many things which may be done by one; et entia non
CHAP. VI.] IN BESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 305
sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate, beings are not unnecessarily to be mul
tiplied. And this deprivation of righteousness, you see, is sufficient, but
especially because that supposition draws on this inevitable and unanswer
able absurdity, that it must have in itself a true, real being and entity ; and if so, then it should have some goodness in it, for, ens et bonum con-
vertuntur, every being is good, and must either be from God, and so he be made the author of it, who doth not so much as tempt to sin, and so sin
should not be sin, for every creature is good, 1 Tim. iv. 4 ; or else, in
the second place, there might be some entity which held not of God in capite, whose name is I AM, and who is the fountain of all beings, John i. 3.
Neither doth the affirmation of the contrary, as thus explained, put us upon the like absurdity, or enforce us from dissenting from any received truth among our divines.
For, first, whereas it may be objected, that this is to deny what formerly I have assumed and proved, namely, that there is a positive as well as a
privative part of man s sinfulness by nature, and therefore if sin be in its own nature but a privation, this is a contradiction, to make two such parts of it.
I answer, That though sin in itself be but a bare privation or want of
righteousness, yet as it is in our natures full of inclinations, which inclina
tions wanting righteousness become sinful, so it may be said to have two
parts; for in the same sense that sin in our actions is said to have two parts, in the same sense it may be said to have in our natures. Now, in our
actions it hath two parts, whereof the first is purely and merely privative, because it is negatio actus debiti, the denial of an act which ought to have been done ; and, secondly, of commission also, which supposeth a positive act done, but implies and connotates withal a want of righteousness, which
ought to have been in it, so that the sinfulness of both them is but a bare
privation or want of righteousness ; yet because it is in positive, therefore the latter is called a sin committed or done, and so distinguished from the former.
Now, to give the reasons to prove that sin in our natures hath two parts, though in itself it be but a want of righteousness.
1. By reason of the want of righteousness, it may be said there are incli
nations in man, but not to good, which good because it ought to be in them, therefore those inclinations are sin.
2. It may further be said, that those inclinations that are there are not
good, for that they want that righteousness which shomld be in them, and therefore are called lusts rJj$ avarr^, which is a further thing than the
former, and which, because it notes out a positive subject, is called the posi tive part.
I will illustrate this answer by a similitude grounded on a Scripture expression, which calls our lusts, thus wanting righteousness, and making up this positive part, the body of sin : Bom. vi. 6, That the body of sin
might be destroyed, &c. And it is called members of it : Col. iii. 5,
* Mortify therefore your members, &c. This alludes to a natural body; that as a body is a part of a living man, so these lusts are a part of original sin, and so called flesh. Now, to speak properly, all life is formally and origi nally in the soul only, as the fountain and source of it ; yet this soul being in a body, and informing it, the body is truly called a living part, which yet in
itself alone considered is but a dead thing. So in like manner and originally the whole essence or nature of sin is expressed in a want of what is good ; but this privation being seated in positive inclinations, these im-linations, as
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306 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BoOK VIII.
thus wanting righteousness, make a distinct part of that sinfulness, and so
answerably is called a body of sin, which inclinations also, as simply con
sidered in themselves, are good, and so far as positive ; but wanting right eousness, are called sins ; and the like is said of habits superadded to them. And hence these positive inclinations, as thus wanting true righteousness, having all their power and force turned to sin, and against what is good, they may truly be called a law of the members fighting against the law of the
mind, and so not to be privatively only contrary to grace, but positively also : Gal. v. 17, For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other. And so
they are called flesh, and the acts lusts of flesh ; and hence also, because
self-love exalteth all the power and force that is in us against what is good, and carries it on to evil, therefore the dethroning and deposing of self-love, and reducing it to its first order to make it subject to grace, is called morti
fication, and denying a man s self, as that new principle of grace put in, that
is made king, is called vivification ; neither doth this make man in puris
naturalibus, for that is a notion that, in descending from the state of grace into a state of sin, cannot be imagined, seeing God created man upright, but he fell from that righteous state.
And as for the increase of the same sinful habits, there is the like reason ; for so far as the act is good, jthere is increased an aptness to fall the same way again ; but that it should be more sinfully than ever is from a further
elongation from God, and so from a further privation in that inclination, and from a consideration of the former pleasures of sin, which the man reflects
on, and is more strongly allured therefore to do the same again. Neither have
the papists any advantage by this, seeing their end and meaning in denying a
positive part is but to affirm lusts to be no sin ; and our divines meaning, when they contend for a positive part, is but to shew that lusts are sins, which
is as well established by this doctrine as by any other, which therefore thus
explained no way dissents from them, or gives way to the papists.