or whatever other cause it be, in this I am sure they contradict themselves, notwithstanding in this they agree full well, 'That God rejecteth none for original sin only,' as Episcopius speaks. And here, if you tell them that the question is not de facto, what God doth; but de jure, what such sinners deserve, they tell us plainly? That" God will not destinate any infants to eternal punishment for original sin, without their own proper actual sins, neither can he do so, by right, or in justice:' so that the children of Turks, Pagans, and the like infidels, strangers from the covenant of grace, departing in their infancy, are far happier than any Christian men, who must undergo a hard warfare against sin and Satan, in danger to fall finally away at the last hour; and through many difficulties entering the kingdom of heaven, when they, without farther trouble, are presently assumed thither for their innocency. Yea, although they are neither elected of God; for as they affirm, he chooseth none but for their faith, which they have not; nor redeemed by Christ, for he died only for sinners, he saveth 'his people from their sins,' which they are not guilty of; nor sanctified by the Holy Ghost, all whose operations they restrain to a moral suasion, whereof infants are not a capable subject. Which is not much to the honour of the blessed Trinity, that heaven should be replenished with them whom the Father never elected, the Son never redeemed, nor the Holy Ghost sanctified.

And thus you see what they make of this original pravity of our nature, at most an infirmity, or languor thereof; neither a sin, nor the punishment of sin properly so called; nor yet a thing that deserves punishment as a sin. Which last assertion, whether it be agreeable to Holy Scripture or no, these two following observations will declare.

First, There is no confusion, no disorder, no vanity in the whole world, in any of God's creatures, that is not a punishment of our sin in Adam. That great and almost universal ruin of nature, proceeding from the curse of God overgrowing the earth, and the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven, is the proper issue of his transgression. It was of the great mercy of God, that the whole frame of nature was

Deus neminem ob solum peccatum originis rejecit Episcop. disp. 9. Thes. 2. "Pro certo statuunt Deum nullos infantes, sine actualibus ac propriis peccatis, morientes, æternis cruciatibus destinare velle, aut jure destinare posse ob peccatum quod vocatur originis. Rem. Apol. p. 87.

not presently rolled up in darkness, and reduced to its primitive confusion. Had we ourselves been deprived of those remaining sparks of God's image in our souls, which vindicates us from the number of the beasts that perish; had we been all born fools, and void of reason, by dealing so with some in particular, he sheweth us, it had been but justice to have wrapped us in the same misery, all in general. All things when God first created them, were exceeding good, and thought so by the wisdom of God himself; but our sin even compelled that good and wise Creator to hate and curse the work of his own hands: Cursed is the ground,' saith he to Adam, for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee;' Gen. iii. 17, 18. Hence was that heavy burden of vanity, that bondage of corruption, under which to this day the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain until it be delivered ;' Rom. viii. 21, 22. Now, if our sin had such a strange malignant influence upon those things which have no relation unto us, but only as they were created for our use, surely it is of the great mercy of God that we ourselves are not quite confounded; which doth not yet so interpose itself, but that we are all compassed with divers sad effects of this iniquity, lying actually under divers pressing miseries, and deservedly obnoxious to everlasting destruction. So that,

Secondly, Death temporal, with all its antecedents and attendants, all infirmities, miseries, sicknesses, wasting destroying passions, casualties that are penal, all evil conducing thereunto, or waiting on it, is a punishment of original sin and this, not only because the first actual sin of Adam is imputed to us, but most of them are the proper issues of that native corruption, and pollution of sin, which is stirring and operative within us, for the production of such sad effects, our whole nature being by it thoroughly defiled. Hence are all the distortures and distemperatures of the soul, by lusts, concupiscence, passions, blindness of mind, perverseness of will, inordinateness of affections, wherewith we are pressed and turmoiled; even proper issues of that inherent sin, which possesseth our whole souls.

Upon the body also, it hath such an influence in disposing it to corruption and mortality, as it is the original of

all those infirmities, sicknesses, and diseases, which make us nothing but a shop of such miseries for death itself; as these and the like degrees are the steps which lead us on apace in the road that tends unto it; so they are the direct internal efficient causes thereof, in subordination to the justice. of Almighty God, by such means inflicting it as a punishment of our sins in Adam. Man before his fall, though not in regard of the matter whereof he was made, nor yet merely. in respect of his quickening form, yet in regard of God's ordination, was immortal, a keeper of his own everlastingness. Death, to which before he was not obnoxious, was threatened as a punishment of his sin: In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die:' the exposition of which words, given by God, at the time of his inflicting this punishment, and pronouncing man subject to mortality, clearly sheweth that it comprehended temporal death also: 'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.' Our return to dust, is nothing but the soul leaving the body, whereby before it was preserved from corruption. Farther, St. Paul opposeth that death we had by the sin of Adam, to the resurrection of the body by the power of Christ: 'For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection from the dead for as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be. made alive;' I Cor. xv. 21, 22. The life, which all shall receive by the power of Christ at the last day, is essentially a reunion of soul and body, and therefore their separation is a thing we incurred by the sin of Adam. The same apostle also, Rom. v. describeth a universal reign of death over all, by reason of the first transgression: even diseases also, in the Scripture, are attributed unto sin, as their meritorious cause; John v. 14, 1 Cor. xii. 30. Rev. ii. 22. and in respect of all these, the mercy of God doth not so interpose itself, but that all the sons of men are in some sort partakers of them.

Thirdly, The final desert of original sin, as our article speaketh, is damnation; the wrath of God to be poured on us, in eternal torments of body and soul. To this end also, many previous judgments of God are subservient; as the privation of original righteousness, which he took, and withkeld, upon Adam's throwing it away; spiritual desertion, permission of sin, with all other destroying depravations of

our nature, as far as they are merely penal; some of which are immediate consequents of Adam's singular actual transgression, as privation of original righteousness; others, as damnation itself, the proper effects of that derived sin and pollution that is in us: there is none damned but for their own sin. When divines affirm that by Adam's sin we are guilty of damnation, they do not mean, that any are actually damned for his particular fact, but that by his sin, and our sinning in him, by God's most just ordination we have contracted that exceeding pravity, and sinfulness of nature, which deserveth the curse of God, and eternal damnation. It must be an inherent uncleanness that actually excludes out of the kingdom of heaven; Rev. xxi. 27. which uncleanness the apostle shews to be in infants not sanctified by an interest in the covenant: in brief 'we are baptized unto the remission of sins, that we may be saved;' Acts ii. 38. that, then, which is taken away by baptism, is that which hinders our salvation, which is not the first sin of Adam imputed, but our own inherent lust and pollution. We cannot be washed, and cleansed, and purged from an imputed sin, which is done by the laver of regeneration, from that which lies upon us, only by an external denomination. We have no need of cleansing; we may be said to be freed from it, or justified, but not purged; the soul, then, that is guilty of sin shall die, and that for its own guilt. If God should condemn us for original sin only, it were not by reason of the imputation of Adam's fault, but of the iniquity of that portion of nature, in which we are proprietaries.

Now here, to shut up all, observe, that in this inquiry of the desert of original sin, the question is not, what shall be the certain lot of those that depart this life under the guilt of this sin only? but what this hereditary and native corruption doth deserve, in all those in whom it is? For, as St. Paul saith, we judge not them that are without' (especially infants); 1 Cor. v. 13. but for the demerit of it in the justice of God, our Saviour expressly affirmeth, that unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;' John iii. and let them that can, distinguish between a not going to heaven, and a going to hell; a third receptacle of souls in the Scripture we find not. St. Paul also tells us, that by nature we are children of wrath;'

Eph. ii. 3. even originally and actually, we are guilty of, and obnoxious unto, that wrath, which is accompanied with fiery indignation, that shall consume the adversaries. Again, we are assured that no unclean thing shall enter into heaven ;' Rev. xxi. with which hell-deserving uncleanness children are polluted, and therefore, unless it be purged with the blood of Christ, they have no interest in everlasting happiness. By this means sin is come upon all to condemnation, and yet do we not peremptorily censure to hell all infants departing this world without the laver of regeneration, the ordinary means of waving the punishment, due to this pollution. That is the question de facto, which we before rejected: yea, and two ways there are, whereby God saveth such infants, snatching them like brands out of the fire.

First, By interesting them into the covenant, if their immediate or remote parents have been believers: he is a God of them, and of their seed, extending his mercy unto a thousand generations of them that fear him.

Secondly, By his grace of election, which is most free and not tied to any conditions; by which I make no doubt, but God taketh many unto him in Christ, whose parents never knew, or had been despisers of, the gospel: and this is the doctrine of our church, agreeable to the Scripture, affirming the desert of original sin, to be God's wrath and damnation; to both which how opposite is the Arminian doctrine may thus appear.