III. The doctrine of original sin
III. The doctrine of original sin
And the concern which the posterity of Adam have in it, is greatly found fault with; it is not, indeed, separately and distinctly considered, but dragged into the debate about Election, and Reprobation. And,
1. The Baptist, in this Dialogue, is made to say, [5485] that men lost their ability to repent, to believe and obey the gospel in Ada m, and by and at the fall; upon which, this writer makes this wise supposition: “I suppose the women lost it in Eve, and the men in Adam.” This little piece of drollery Dr. Whitby [5486] has suggested to him, from whom he has borrowed, or rather stolen, a great many of his beautiful and masterly strokes in this performance. Adam, in his state of innocence, had a power of doing what is truly good and righteous; but by sinning, lost it. God made him upright, but he sinned, and lost the uprightness, the rectitude of his nature; and this loss is sustained by all his posterity: for there is none righteous, no not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God; they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one. (12) This man owns, [5487] that “we suffer loss through Adam’s fall, and have an hereditary disease conveyed to us which worketh death; ” which hereditary disease cannot be any one particular corporal disease, because no such disease is hereditary to all mankind, or conveyed to every individual of human nature. No disease but the disease of sin is hereditary, and conveyed to Adam’s whole posterity, and this worketh death; the wages of sin is death, not only corporal, but eternal; as the antithesis in the following words declares, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
2. This writer thinks, [5488] “God is not at all angry with us for what Adam did, nor that it is just to condemn his posterity for what was done by him so long ago.” To which I answer, that all men are by nature children of wrat h, (Ephesians 2:3) that is, deserving of the wrath and displeasure of God, because they bring a corrupt nature into the world with them, derived from Ada m, and conveyed unto them by natural generation; they are shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, (Psalm 51:5) and as such, must be displeasing to God; whatsoever is born of the flesh is fles h; (John 3:6) that is, is carnal and corrupt; and whatsoever is so, cannot be agreeable to God: and since this is the consequence of Adam’s transgression, why may not God be thought to be angry and displeased with men on that account, and even punish them for it, since he threatens to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children? (Exodus 20:5) It is true, indeed, that in general that rule holds good; that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father; (Ezekiel 18:20) though this is not without exceptions to it, and only holds in such cases in which children have no concern with their parents; whereas the posterity of Adam were not only concerned with him as their natural, but as their federal and representative head; they stood in him, and fell with him in his transgression. The apostle expressly says, that in him all have sinned; and gives this as a reason why death hath passed upon all men. (Romans 5:12) Besides, he further observes, (Romans 5:18) that by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. The plain and obvious meaning of which is, that all men are condemned through the offense of the first man, being made sinners by his sin: which is expressly asserted by the apostle, when he says, [5489] by the disobedience of one many were made sinners. But, says our author, (Romans 5:19) “that St Paul, by sinners, means sufferer s, is plain, not only from reason, for no other sense can be true, but from his own explication, in Adam all die.” This sense he has learned from Dr. Whitby; [5490] but does not pretend to give us one instance in which this word is ever so used. Αυαρτωλος always signifies persons criminal, guilty of a fault, and frequently such who are notoriously so. The sense he gives is contrary to the apostle’s design in the context, to the distinction he all along makes between sin and death, the one being the cause, the other the effect; and is to be disproved by the following part of the text, by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous: where the obedience of Christ is opposed to Adam’s disobedience, righteous to sinners; and a being made righteous by the one, to a being made sinners by the other. Now, by the rule of opposition, as to be made righteous by Christ’s obedience, is to be constituted and accounted so for the sake of his obedience; so to be made sinners by Adam’s disobedience, is to be constituted and reckoned so on the account of it: and, after all, how is it reconcilable with the justice of God, that men should die in Ada m, suffer for his disobedience, if they are in no sense guilty of it, or chargeable with it? But,
3. The imputation of Adam’s sin, the ground of which is the covenant God made with him as a federal head, is represented [5491] as “an absurd and unrighteous scheme of divinity; and what men must quit their understandings, and give up all the principles of reason, truth and justice, to give into.” But where is the absurdity or injustice of God’s setting up Adam as a federal head to all his posterity, to stand or fall together, who were all naturally in his loins, as Levi was in the loins of Abraham? Had we been in being, had we been admitted principals, given out our own orders, and made our own choice, could we have made a better choice than God did for us? And since, had he stood, we should have enjoyed the advantages arising from his standing, why should we think it any hardship or injustice done us, that we share in the consequences of his fall? Was it never known, even among men, that posterity unborn have been obliged by covenants, which could not be made by their order, of which they could have no knowledge, and to which they gave no consent? Nay, have not children been involved in the crimes of parents, and been subject to penalties, and have endured them on the account of them, as in the case of treason? And have such procedures been reckoned absurd and unrighteous?
4. This author seems to have no other notion of original sin, but as it is an approbation or imitation of Adam’s transgression; “if we approve of, says he, [5492] and imitate Adam’s transgression, we may be punished for such approbation and imitation, but not for his transgression:” which was the vain opinion of the Pelagians, condemned by that church, to which he would be thought to belong, in her ninth Article, and in which she represents original sin as deserve of God’s wrath and damnation: it begins thus, “Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is, of his own nature, inclined to evil; so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.”