intelligible things concerning his justice and goodness, since our blessed Saviour, concerning infants and those only who are like infants, affirms, that' of such is the kingdom of heaven.' But now in the midst of this great variety of opinions it will be hard to pick out any thing that is certain. For my part I believe this only as certain, that nature alone cannot bring them to heaven; and that Adam left us in a state in which we could not hope for it; but this I know also, that as soon as this was done, Christ was promised, and that before there was any birth of man or woman; and that God's grace is greater and more communicative than sin, and Christ was more gracious and effective than Adam was hurtful; and that therefore it seems very agreeable to God's goodness to bring them to happiness by Christ, who were brought to misery by Adam, and that he will do this by himself alone, in ways of his own finding out.

And yet, if God will not give them heaven by Christ, he will not throw them into hell by Adam: if his goodness will not do the first, his goodness and his justice will not suffer him to do the second: and therefore I consent to antiquity and the schoolmen's opinion thus far; that the destitution or loss of God's sight are the effect of original sin, that is, by Adam's sin we were left so as that we cannot by it go to heaven. But here I differ: whereas they say this may be a final event; I find no warrant for that; and think it only to be an intermedial event; that is, though Adam's sin left us there, yet God did not leave us there; but instantly gave us Christ as a remedy; and now what in particular shall be the state of unbaptized infants, so dying, I do not profess to know or teach, because God hath kept it as a secret; I only know that he is a gracious Father, and from his goodness, nothing but goodness is to be expected; and that is, since neither Scripture, nor any father, till about St. Austin's time, did teach the poor babes could die, not only once for Adam's sin, but twice and for ever, I can never think that I do my duty to God, if I think or speak any thing of him that seems so unjust, or so much against his goodness: and therefore, although by baptism, or by the ordinary ministry, infants are new born, and rescued from the state of Adam's account, which metonymically may be called a remitting of original sin, that is, a receiving them from the punishment of Adam's

sin, or the state of evil, whither in him they are devolved; yet baptism does but consider that grace which God gives in Jesus Christ, and he gives it more ways than one, to them that desire baptism, to them that die for Christianity; and the church, even in Origen's time, and before that, did account the babes, that died in Bethlehem by the sword of Herod, to be saints; and I do not doubt but he gives it many ways that we know not of.

And therefore St. Bernard, and many others, do suppose, that the want of baptism is supplied by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. To which purpose the eighty-seventh epistle of St. Bernard is worth the reading. But this I add, that those who affirmed that infants without actual baptism could not be saved, affirmed the same also of them, if they wanted the holy eucharist, as is to be seen in Paulinus, epigr. 6. the writer Hypognosticon,' lib. 5. 8. St. Austin, hom. 13. serm. 8. de Verbis Apostoli; and the one hundred and seventh epistle to Vitalis.

of ،

And since no church did ever enjoin to ony catechumen, any penance or repentance for original sin, it seems horrible and unreasonable, that any man can be damned for that, for which no man is bound to repent.

SECTION V.

The Doctrine of Antiquity in this whole Matter.
The sum of all is this.

18. I. ORIGINAL sin is Adam's sin imputed to us to many evil effects.

II. It brings death and the evils of this life.

III. Our evils and necessity being brought upon us, bring in a flood of passions which are hard to be bridled, or mortified.

IV. It hath left us in pure naturals, disrobed of such aids extraordinary as Adam had.

V. It deprives us of all title to heaven or supernatural happiness, that is, it neither hath in it strength to live a spiritual life, nor title to a heavenly.

VI. It leaves in us our natural concupiscence, and makes it much worse.

Thus far I admit and explicate this Article.

But all that I desire of the usual propositions which are variously taught now-a-days, is this.

I. Original sin is not an inherent evil; not a sin properly, but metonymically; that is, it is the effect of one sin, and the cause of many; a stain, but no sin.

II. It does not destroy our liberty, which we had naturally.

III. It does not introduce a natural necessity of sinning. IV. It does not damn any infant to the eternal pains of hell.

And now how consonant my explication of the article is to the first and best antiquity, besides the testimonies I have already brought here concerning some parts of it, will appear by the following authorities, speaking to the other parts of it, and to the whole question.

St. Ignatius the martyr, in his epistle to the Magnesians, hath these words: Ἐὰν εὐσεβῇ τις, ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ ἐστιν· ἐὰν δὲ ἀσεβῇ τις, ἄνθρωπος τοῦ διαβόλου· οὐκ ἀπὸ τῆς φύσεως, ἀλλ ̓ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ γνώμης γινόμενος : “ If a man be a pious man, he is a man of God: if he be impious, he is of the devil: not made so by nature, but by his own choice and sentence';" by which words he excludes nature, and affirms our natural liberty to be the cause of our good or evil; that is, we are in fault: but not Adam, so as we are.

And it is remarkable that Ignatius hath said nothing to the contrary of this, or to infirm the force of these words; and they who would fain have alleged him to contrary purposes, cite him calling Adam's sin maλaiàv dvoσéßetav, the old iniquity;' which appellative is proper enough, but of no efficacy in this question.

Dionysius the Areopagite (if he be the author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy) does very well explicate this article: Τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν φύσιν ἀρχῆθεν ἀπὸ τῶν θείων ἀγαθῶν ἀνοήτως ἐξολισθήσασαν ή πολυπαθεστάτη ζωὴ διαδέχεται καὶ τοῦ φθόροποιοῦ θανάτου πέρας. " When in the beginning human nature Dionysius Areopag. cap. 3. part. 3.

P St. Ignatius.

foolishly fell from the state of good things which God gave it, it was then entered into a life of passions, and the end of the corruption of death." This sentence of his differs not from that of St. Chrysostom before alleged; for when man grew miserable by Adam's fall, and was disrobed of his aids, he grew passionate, and peevish, and tempted, and sick, and died. This is all his account of Adam's story: and it is a very true one. But the writer was of a later date, not much before St. Austin's time, as it is supposed; but a learned and a catholic believer".

19. Concerning Justin Martyr, I have already given this account, that he did not think the liberty of choice impaired by Adam's sin; but in his dialogue with Tryphon the Jew," he gives no account of original sin but this, that "Christ was not crucified or born as if himself did need it, but for the sake of mankind, which by Adam fell into death, and the deception of the serpent, besides all that which men commit wickedly upon their own stock of impiety."-So that the effect of Adam's sin was death, and being abused by the devil; for this very reason to rescue us from the effects of this deception, and death, and to redeem us from our impiety, Christ was born and died. But all this meddles not with any thing of the present questions; for to this all interests, excepting the Pelagians' and Socinians', will subscribe. It is material which is spoken by him, or some under his name in the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox:' Οὐδεὶς πεφυκως ἁμαρτάνειν ἢ ἀνομεῖν, ὃς οὐχ ἥμαρτεν ἢ οὐχ ἠνά μησεν. Πέφυκε δὲ ἁμαρτάνειν ὁ κατὰ τὴν αὐθαίρετον προαίρεσιν ἄγων ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὸ πράττειν ἃ βούλεται, εἴτε ἀγαθὰ εἴτε φαῦλα. Τὸ δὲ βρέφος, ἅτε οὔπω ὂν τῆς τοιαύτης δυνάμεως, δῆλον ὅτι οὐδὲ πέφυκεν ἁμαρτάνειν. “ There is: no man who is by nature born to sin and do wickedly, but hath sinned and done wickedly. But he is by nature born to sin, who by the choice of his free-will is author to himself of doing what he will, whether it be good or bad. But an infant, as being not endued with any such power, it appears sufficiently that he is not by nature born to sin."-These words, when they had been handled as men pleased, and turned to such senses as they thought they could escape by, at last they appear to be the words of one, who understood nothing of original sin, r Justin Martyr.

$ Quest. 88.

:

as it is commonly explicated at this day. For all that this author (for it was indeed some later catholic author, but not Justin) did know of original sin, was that which he relates in the answer to the one hundred and second question. Περιτεμνόμεθα δὲ καὶ ἡμεῖς τῇ περιτομῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος, ἐκδυόμενοι τὸν ̓Αδάμ, δι ̓ ὃν ἁμαρτωλοὶ γεγονό τες τεθνήκαμεν, καὶ ἐνδυόμενοι τὸν Χριστὸν, δι ̓ ὃν δικαιωθέντες ἀνιστάμεθα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν ἐνῷ φησιν ο Απόστολος) περιετμήθητε περιτομὴν ἀχειροποίητον τῇ ἀπεκδύσει τοῦ σώματος ὑμῶν. “We also are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ by baptism, putting off Adam, by whom we being made sinners did die, and putting on Christ, by whom being justified, we are risen from the dead in whom (saith the Apostle) we were circumcised with the circumcision which is made without hands, while you have put off your body."-That is, Adam's sin made us to become sinners, that is, was imputed to us, so that in him we die; but by Christ being justified we are made alive; that is, in him we are admitted to another life, a life after our resurrection; and this is by baptism; for there we die to Adam and live to Christ, we are initiated in a new birth to a new and more perfect state of things. But all this leaves infants in a state of so much innocence, that they are not formally guilty of a sin, but imperfect and insufficient to righteousness, and every one hath his liberty left him to do as he please: so far is affirmed by the author of these answers. But the sentence of Justin Martyr in this article may best be conjectured by his discourse, at large undertaking to prove τὴν προαιρεσιν ἐλευθερὰν πρὸς τὸ φεύγειν τὰ αἰσχρὰ καὶ αἱρεῖσθαι τὰ καλά, “ a freedom of election to fly evil things, and to choose that which is good;" set down in his second Apology for the Christians.

tà

Theophilus Antiochenus affirms that which destroys the new paivóμɛva, about Adam's perfection and rare knowledge in the state of innocence. Τῇ δὲ οὔσῃ ἡλικίᾳ ὁ ̓Αδὰμ ἔτι νήπιος ἦν, διὸ οὔπω ἐδύνατο τὴν γνῶσιν κατ ̓ ἀξίαν χωρεῖν. "Adam in that age was yet as an infant, and therefore did not understand that secret, viz. that the fruit which he ate, had in it nothing but knowledge:" and a little after, reckoning the evil consequents of Adam's sin, he names these only,

t Quest. 88.