body, αλλ' ἐδὲ πρεσβύτερον τῆς γενέσεως ἔγκλημα ζητηθήσεται, “ nor will any fault antecedent to the body, be charged upon it;' and therefore not the sin of Adam.' "b 4. That "St. Paul teacheth that 'death reigned over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression;' which," saith he, "cannot be according to the opinion of Origen (much less according to them who say that "we all personally sinned in Adam;") for then where will they be found who have not thus sinned?"c 5. That "Christ by saying concerning the blind man, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his fathers,' said what is to be interpreted of the time preceding their nativity, καθ' δν ἔπω γεγονότες ¿dé Яμágτavov,' when being not yet born, they had not sinned:' πῶς γὰρ ἡ μὴ ὑφες ῶσα καὶ ἁμαρτεῖν ἠδύνατο; “for how can the soul sin that did not exist'?" (Add, or that soul which had no being when Adam sinned?) Moreover they condemn Origen's opinion concerning "the resurrection, not of the same body," on this score, that "it was unjust that one body sinning another should be punished;" and must it not be more unjust that one Adam sinning all mankind should be punished? Against his other opinion, St. Jerome thus disputes; "if it be an offence to be born of human bodies, quomodo Isaac, Sampson, et Johannes Baptista de repromissione nas cuntur, 'how were Isaac, Sampson, and John the Baptist, born by promise"?" And if it be no offence to be thus born, it can be no offence to be born of lapsed Adam; if "the cause of vice and virtue be not," as he saith, "in the seed, but in the will of him that is born." If he could not sin by the body, as Methodius saith, who yet was not; neither could men sin by the soul which yet was not. If, as he saith, they who act intemperately cannot be worthy of reprehension by a just judge, advvátws èxèσης τῆς σαρκὸς ὑποτάσσεσθαι τῷ νόμῳ τὸ θεῖ, if the flesh could not be subject to the divine law,' neither can the sons of Adam, lying under the disability by reason of the flesh, be subject to reprehension. In a word, Epiphanius truly blames Origen and John of Jerusalem, for saying that "the image and similitude of God was lost in man after the expulsion of Adam out of Paradise;" and b P. 83. c P. 84. Hieron. ad Pam. Tom. 2, f. 61, K. d Ibid. gIbid. ✔ Hieron. ad Pam. Tom. 2, f. 62, E. yet, according to the doctrine of these men, this must be a most certain article of faith, IV. FOURTHLY. Now be it so that St. Austin, to defend himself against himseif, renounced, in his discourses against the Pelagians, most of those things which he had said in confutation of the Manichees; yet seeing the things he had then said were evidently the voice of nature, and by his own confession, "the voice of every man's conscience, and that which learned and unlearned, poets and orators, and civilians, heathens and chrisuans, did unanimously own;" seeing the christian Fathers who lived before him, in his time, and after him, and equalled or much excelled him in learning and judgment, said constantly the same things, and never thought fit to renounce one tittle of any thing they had thus said, nor ever excepted, as he did afterwards, the case of infants, or original sin: It is manifest that his innovations and discord from his former and better self in this manner, ought not to be regarded in opposition to the constant sense and the concurring judgment of all these Fathers of the church; especially if we consider First. That he hath been able to say nothing in answer to some of the arguments produced by him in confutation of the Manichees, viz. (i.) to the arguments taken from the divine precepts;the Mosaical precepts, do this, and do not that, being given to fallen man, and therefore if it be, as he saith, "folly and injustice" to lay them upon him who hath no power to do what is commanded or omit what is forbidden, it cannot consist with divine equity to lay these precepts upon fallen man had he no power of himself, and no assurance of divine assistance to enable him to do them. Such (ii.) is his argument taken from the duty of repentance; for if that testifies that the penitent hath done ill when he might have done well, when was it that the posterity of Adam might have done well before they were his posterity? But then they were not; if after, then if they contracted the guilt of Original Sin, they had done ill when they were not able to do well. Secondly. That the exceptions which he makes to some of his own rules, and the answers he attempts to make to some of his own arguments, are vain, false, and absurd. Thus when in defence of his definition of sin, that "it is the will to do that from which we have the power to abstain," he saith, that he "defined that which was only sin, and not that which is also, pæna peccati, 'the punishment of sin';" he speaks a contradiction to himself, and to the plainest reason, it being evident that what is properly sin, can never be the punishment of sin; "for all punishment," saith he, "being from God, must be just, et bonum est omne quod est justum, peccatum ergo quod est pœna peccati erit peccatum et bonum et justum, and whatsoever is just is good; that sin therefore which is the punishment of sin, must be a good and a just sin'." Moreover, all punishment inflicted by God, is the action of a Just Judge, proceeding from his holy will; whereas sin can never be the action of God, or issue from his holy will. By sin all men are worthy of punishment; but no man can deserve punishment for being punished. By punishment some satisfaction is made for sin; but no man can make satisfaction for a past sin by another sin.—(2.) Whereas he adds, that "this penal necessity of sinning consists well with the nature of Original Sin;" this may be sufficiently confuted from his own words, that "the defect which is called sin, if it seized on a man against his will, recte injusta pana videretur quæ peccantem consequitur, et quæ damnatio nuncupatur, 'the punishment which follows the sinner, and is styled DAMNATION, might rightly be esteemed unjust';"* seeing therefore Original Sin is a disease necessary, and more inevitable than a fever, and comes upon us before we can will any thing; the punishment and damnation inflicted for it cannot, according to this principle, be just. (Lastly.) Whereas, he says, "it is natural and well appointed, ut malum meritum prioris natura sequentis sit,' that the ill desert of a former sin, should be the nature of the following';" this is very absurd from his own principles. "For if," as he says, "no man is wise, valiant, or temperate with the wisdom, valour, or temperance of another, aut justus justitiâ alterius quisquam efficitur, or righteous with the righteousness of another';" how comes he to be made willing with the will of another, or sinful with the sin of another? Especially when he not only adds, that "no nature can be corrupted by the vice of another, nullo adjuncto vitio suo, without an addition of a sin of its own;' and if it could be so, injuste vituperaretur, 'it would unjustly be blamed on that account'." But proveth this; (i.) m De Lih. Arb. L. 2, c. 19. Because nemo debet quod non accepit, ex eo igitur quod non accepit nemo reus est, 'no man owes what he hath not received, and so no person can be guilty for the want of that original righteousness he never did or could receive'." (ii.) Because, si homo ita factus est, ut necessario peccet, hoc debet ut peccet, if man be so made that he necessarily sins, he owes sin as a debt to nature;' and then when he sins, quod debet facit, he does only what he ought to do,' which yet it is wickedness to say."" In a word he saith, "since no man is compelled to sin by his own nature, or by the nature of another, restat ut propriâ voluntate peccetur, 'it remains that every one sins by his own proper will'," ömeg édei deïžai.* Discourse W. CONCERNING THE PERSEVERANCE OF SAINTS. The State of the Question. CHAP. I. FOR the better stating of this question, it will be useful to premise that which is granted on both sides; for by that it will be easy to discern, 1. That many of those scriptures, which are produced to prove the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, do not reach the point; they proving only that they who do thus persevere are preserved by divine assistance, and not that God hath absolutely engaged to afford them that assistance which will unfrustrably preserve them. 2. That many of the arguments produced to confirm this doctrine, are inconsistent with the foundations on which alone they ground that doctrine. I. First. Then we own that they who are preserved to salvation, are so preserved by the power of God through faith;' and n Ibid. d. 16. *Which it was necessary to demonstrate.' ED. a 1 Peter i, 5. that they who are thus kept are kept by Christ," he alone being able to keep them unblameable;" but then we deny that God hath absolutely promised to keep them by his power from making shipwreck of this faith; or that the just man who lives by faith, shall never draw back to perdition." Secondly. We own that God hath engaged his faithfulness, that all who do not wickedly depart from him, shall never be forced from him by the power of any adversaries; for none shall ever be able to pluck them out of his hands," not death itself; for the gates of Hades shall not prevail against them;'f not persecutions, or the most fiery trials. He who requires us to be faithful to the death, being obliged in equity and honour to enable us with christian patience to bear them; for he is so faithful that he will not suffer us to be tempted above that we (in this fallen state) are able, but will with the temptation (so far) make a way to escape that we may be able to bear it: So that we may triumphantly cry out, Who shall separate us from the love of God which is (shewed to us) in, that is, through Christ Jesus? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay in all these things we (who continue in his love) are more than conquerors, through (the assistance vouchsafed by) him that loved us.?" And after such happy experience of the divine assistance, ‘I am persuaded,' saith the apostle, that neither (fear of) death, nor (hope of) life, nor (evil) angels, nor principalities, nor powers (persecuting us for Christ's sake,) nor the things (we endure at) present, nor (the) things (we may suffer for the time) to come, nor height (of honour,) nor depth (of ignominy,) nor any other creature (or thing) shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is (vouchsafed to us) in and through Christ Jesus our Lord.' But then the same God requiring them who were come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the general assembly, and church of the first-born who are written in heaven, to look diligently, un ris, LEST ANY of them fall from the grace of God, and to hold fast that grace by which alone they can serve God acceptably, because our God is (to them who do fall from it) a consuming fire, (Heb. xii. 15, 29.) and to take heed lest there should |