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THE

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE

OF

REPENTANCE.

CHAP. IV.

OF CONCUPISCENCE, AND ORIGINAL SIN; AND WHETHER OR NO, OR HOW FAR, WE ARE BOUND TO REPENT OF IT.

SECTION I.

ORIGINAL sin is so called karaxonoruws, or figuratively,' meaning the sin of Adam, which was committed in the original of mankind by our first parent, and which hath influence upon all his posterity. Nascuntur noh propriè, sed originaliter, peccatores:" so St. Austin"; and therefore St. Ignatius calls it waλaiàv dvoσéßeav, the old impiety°;' that which was in the original or first parent of mankind.

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2. This sin brought upon Adam all that God threatened, but no more. A certainty of dying, together with the proper effects and affections of mortality, were inflicted on him; and he was reduced to the condition of his own nature, and then begat sons and daughters in his own likeness, that is, in the proper temper and constitution of mortal men. For as God was not bound to give what he never promised, viz. an immortal duration and abode in this life; so neither does it appear, in that angry intercourse that God had with Adam, that he took from him or us any of our natural perfections, but his graces only.

3. Man, being left in this state of pure naturals, could not by his own strength arrive to a supernatural end; which was typified in his being cast out of Paradise, and the guarding of it with the flaming sword of a cherub. For eternal life,

De Civit. lib. 16. c. 18.

VOL. IX.

B

Epist. ad Trallian.

being an end above our natural proportion, cannot be acquired by any natural means. Neither Adam nor any of his posterity could, by any actions or holiness, obtain heaven by desert, or by any natural efficiency; for it is a gift still, and it is neque currentis, neque operantis,'' neither of him that runneth, nor of him that worketh,' but of God; who freely gives it to such persons, whom he, also by other gifts and graces, hath disposed towards the reception of it.

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4. What gifts and graces, or supernatural endowments, God gave to Adam in his state of innocence, we know not; God hath no where told us; and of things unrevealed we commonly make wild conjectures. But, after his fall, we find no sign of any thing but of a common man. And therefore, as it was with him, so it is with us; our nature cannot go to heaven, without the helps of the divine grace; so neither could his and whether he had them or no, it is certain we have; receiving more by the second Adam than we did lose by the first and the sons of God are now spiritual, which he never was, that we can find.

5. But concerning the sin of Adam, tragical things are spoken; it destroyed his original righteousness, and lost it to us for ever; it corrupted his nature, and corrupted ours; and brought upon him, and not him only, but on us also, who thought of no such thing,—an inevitable necessity of sinning, making it as natural to us to sin as to be hungry, or to be sick and die; and the consequent of these things is saddest of all; we are born enemies of God, sons of wrath, and heirs of eternal damnation.

6. In the meditation of these sad stories, I shall separate the certain from the uncertain, that which is revealed from that which is presumed, that which is reasonable from that which makes too bold reflections upon God's honour, and the reputation of his justice and his goodness. I shall do it in the words of the Apostle, from whence men commonly dispute in this question, right or wrong, according as it happens.

7. "By one man sin came into the world P." That sin entered into the world by Adam, is therefore certain, because he was the first man; and unless he had never sinned, it must needs enter by him; for it comes in first by the first; "and

P Rom. v. 12.

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