to be so perfect, that the grace of God was not necessary, and that, by nature alone, they could go to heaven; which because I affirm to be impossible, and that baptism is therefore necessary, because nature is insufficient, and baptism is the great channel of grace; there ought to be no envious and ignorant load laid upon my doctrine, as if it complied with the Pelagian, against which it is so essentially and so mainly opposed in the main difference of his doctrine. 5. Children are therefore baptized, because, if they live, they will sin, and though their sins are not pardoned beforehand, yet in baptism they are admitted to that state of favour, that they are within the covenant of repentance and pardon: and this is expressly the doctrine of St. Austin'. But of this I have already given larger accounts in my discourse of baptism". 6. Children are baptized for the pardon even of original sin; this may be affirmed truly, but yet improperly for so far as it is imputed, so far also it is remissible; for the evil that is done by Adam, is also taken away in Christ; and it is imputed to us to very evil purposes, as I have already explicated: but as it was among the Jews, who believed then the sin to be taken away, when the evil of punishment is taken off; so is original sin taken away in baptism; for though the material part of the evil is not taken away, yet the curse, in all the sons of God, is turned into a blessing, and is made an occasion of reward, or an entrance to it. Now in all this I affirm all that is true, and all that is probable: for in the same sense, as original stain is a sin, so does baptism bring the pardon. It is a sin metonymically, that is, because it is the effect of one sin, and the cause of many; and just so, in baptism, it is taken away, that it is now the matter of a grace, and the opportunity of glory; and upon these accounts, the church baptizes all her children. Object. 5. But to deny original sin to be a sin properly and inherently, is expressly against the words of St. Paul in the fifth chapter to the Romans :-If it be, I have done; but that it is not, I have these things to say. 1. If the words be capable of any interpretation, and can be permitted to signify otherwise than is vulgarly pretended, I suppose myself * Vide August. de Gestis Palestin. et lib. de Natur. et Grat. c. 21. Opus Imperf. in Julian. 1. 1. c. 54. et lib. de Peccat. Orig. c. 21. Lib. 1. de Nupt. et Concup. cap. 26. et cap. 33. et tract. 124. in Johan. to have given reasons sufficient, why they ought to be. For any interpretation, that does violence to right reason, to religion, to holiness of life, and the divine attributes of God,is therefore to be rejected, and another chosen; for in all Scriptures, all good and all wise men do it. 6 -- 2. The words in question,' sin' and 'sinner' and ' condemnation,' are frequently used in Scripture" in the lesser sense, and sin' is taken for the punishment of sin; and sin' is taken for him who bore the evil of the sin; and sin' is taken for legal impurity; and for him who could not be guilty, even for Christ himself; as I have proved already: and in the like manner sinners' is used, by the rule of the conjugates and denominatives; but it is so also in the case of Bathsheba the mother of Solomon °. 3. For the word 'condemnation,' it is, by the Apostle himself, limited to signify temporal death; for when the Apostle says, 'Death passed upon all men, inasmuch as all men have sinned;' he must mean temporal death;' for eternal death did not pass upon all men; or if he means 'eternal death,' he must not mean, that it came for Adam's sin; but inasmuch as all men have sinned,' that is, upon all those upon whom eternal death did come, it came, because they also have sinned. For if it had come for Adam's sin; then it had absolutely descended upon all men; because from Adam all men descended; and therefore all men, upon that account, were equally guilty as we see all men die naturally. 4. The Apostle here speaks of sin imputed; therefore, not of sin inherent : and if imputed only to such purposes, as he here speaks of, viz. to temporal death, then it is neither a sin properly, nor yet imputable to eternal death, so far as is, or can be, implied by the Apostle's words. And in this I am not a little confirmed by the discourse of St. Irenæus to this purpose P; Propter hoc et initio transgressionis Adæ," &c. "Therefore, in the beginning of Adam's transgression, as the Scripture tells, God did not curse Adam, but the earth in his labours; as one of the ancients saith, God removed the curse upon the earth, that it might not abide on man. But the condemnation of his sin he received, weariness, and labour, and to eat in the sweat of his brows, and to return to dust again; n 1 Kings, i. 21. Zech, xiv. 19. 2 Cor. v. 21. Isa. liii. 10. Heb. ix. 28. and likewise the woman had for her punishment, tediousness, labours, groans, sorrows of child-birth, and to serve her husband; that they might not wholly perish in the curse, nor yet despise God, while they remained without punishment. But all the curse ran upon the serpent, who seduced them,—and this our Lord in the Gospel saith to them on his left hand: 'Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels :' signifying, that not to man, in the prime intention, was eternal fire prepared, but to him, who was the seducer—but this they also shall justly feel, who, like them, without repentance and departing from them, persevere in the works of malice." 5. The Apostle says; By the disobedience of one, many were made sinners :' by which it appears, that we, in this, have no sin of our own, neither is it at all our own formally and inherently; for though efficiently it was his, and effectively ours, as to certain purposes of imputation; yet it could not be a sin to us formally; because it was unius inobedientia,' the disobedience of one man ;' therefore in no sense, could it be properly ours. For then it were not unius,' but inobedientia singulorum:' the disobedience of all men.' 6. Whensoever another man's sin is imputed to his relative, therefore, because it is another's and imputed, it can go no further but to effect certain evils, to afflict the relative, and to punish the cause, not formally to denominate the descendant or relative to be a sinner; for it is as much a contradiction to say, that I am formally by him a sinner, as that I did really do his action. Now to' impute,' in Scripture, signifies, to reckon as if he had done it; ' not to impute' is to treat him so, as if he had not done it. So far then as the imputation is, so far we are reckoned as sinners; but Adam's sin being by the Apostle signified to be imputed but to the condemnation or sentence to a temporal death; so far we are sinners in him, that is, so as that for his sake death was brought upon us; and indeed the word 'imputare,' 'to impute,' does never signify more, nor always so much. 6 6 Imputare verò frequenter ad significationem exprobrantis accedit, sed citra reprehensionem," says Laurentius Valla; "It is like an exprobration, but short of a reproof :" so Quintilian; " Imputas nobis propitios ventos, et secundum mare, ac civitatis opulentæ liberalitatem :" "Thou dost im pute, that is, upbraid to us, our prosperous voyages, and a calm sea, and the liberality of a rich city."- Imputare' signifies oftentimes the same that computare,' to reckon or account:"Nam hæc in quartâ non imputantur," say the lawyers," they are not imputed," that is, they are not computed or reckoned. Thus Adam's sin is imputed to us, that is, it is put into our reckoning; and when we are sick and die, we pay our symbols, the portion of evil that is laid upon us and what Marcus said, I may say in this case with a little variety; "Legata in hæreditate-sive legatum datum sit hæredi, sive percipere, sive deducere vel retinere passus est, ei imputan"The legacy, whether it be given or left to the heir, whether he may take it or keep it, is still imputed to him;" that is, it is within his reckoning. tur: But no reason, no scripture, no religion, does enforce, and no divine attribute does permit, that we should say, that God did so impute Adam's sin to his posterity, that he did really esteem them to be guilty of Adam's sin; equally culpable, equally hateful; for if, in this sense, it be true that in him we sinned, then we sinned as he did, that is, with the same malice, in the same action; and then we are as much guilty as he; but if we have sinned less, then we did not sin in him; for to sin in him, could not by him be lessened to us; for what we did in him, we did by him, and therefore as much as he did; but if God imputed this sin less to us than to him, then this imputation supposes it only to be a collateral and indirect account to such purposes as he pleased: of which purposes we judge by the analogy of faith, by the words of Scripture, by the proportion and notices of the divine attributes. 7. There is nothing in the design or purpose of the Apostle, that can or ought to infer any other thing; for his purpose is to signify, that, by man's sin, death entered into the world; which the Son of Sirach expresses thus; "A muliere factum est initium peccati, et inde est quod morimur:" "From the woman is the beginning of sin; and from her it is that we all die:" and again"; " By the envy of the devil, death came into the world;" this evil being universal, Christ came to the world, and became our head, to other purposes, even to redeem us from death; which he hath begun and will finish, 4 Ecclus. xxv. 33. q r Ecclus. i. 24. and to become to us our parent in a new birth, the author of a spiritual life; and this benefit is of far more efficacy by Christ, than the evil could be by Adam; and as by Adam we are made sinners, so by Christ we are made righteous; not just so, but so and more; and therefore as our 'being made sinners' signifies that by him we die,-so being by Christ made righteous, must at least signify that by him we live: and this is so evident to them who read St. Paul's words, Rom. v. from verse 12. to verse 19. inclusively, that I wonder any man should make a further question concerning them; especially since Erasmus and Grotius, who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best expositors of Scripture, that any age, since the apostles and their immedi ate successors, hath brought forth, have so understood and rendered it. But, Madam, that your Honour may read the words and their sense together, and see that, without violence they signify what I have said, and no more; I have here subjoined a paraphrase of them; in which if I use any violence, I can very easily be reproved. Rom. v. 12.-" As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" i. e. As, by the disobedience of Adam, sin had its beginning; and by sin death, that is, the sentence and preparations, the solemnities and addresses of death, sickness, calamity, diminution of strengths, old age, misfortunes, and all the affections of mortality, for the destroying of our temporal life; and so this mortality, and condition or state of death, passed actually upon all mankind; for Adam, being thrown out of Paradise, and forced to live with his children where they had no trees of life, as he had in Paradise, was remanded to his mortal, natural state; and therefore death passed upon them, mortally seized on all, 'for that all have sinned; that is, the sin was reckoned to all, not to make them guilty like Adam; but Adam's sin passed upon all, imprinting this real calamity on us all: but yet death descended also upon Adam's posterity for their own sins; for since all did sin, all should die. But some Greek copies leave out the second kaì, which indeed seems superfluous |
