by the same act, of the same will, of the same numerical person, we must be guilty of the same numerical transgression. (3.) It cannot truly be affirmed that "we all sinned in Adam, and by his disobedience were made sinners; because his sin and disobedience was, by God's arbitrary will, imputed to us:" For (i.) the scripture no where maketh mention of any thing of another's imputed to any man for reward or guilt, but only of some personal thing or action of his own, as hath been fully proved, note on Rom. v. 13.-(ii.) Either this imputation makes the sin of Adam truly ours, or it doth not. If it doth not, how can we be made sinners by it? If it doth, then death came upon us for OUR sin, and so not for the sin of ONE, but for the sin of ALL: which is the thing disproved already.—(iii.) I ask, whether this imputation made the posterity of Adam sinners; Or, whether it found them so before.--If it found them so before, it was plainly needless, for they might have been condemned to death without it. If it made them so, then since this imputation is the act of God, and not of man, it plainly follows that God must be the author of this sin; because this imputation flows immediately from him, without the intervention of any action of any of those men to whom it is imputed. Moreover, then the imputation must be false, as charging them with sin whom he did not find sinners, but only by his arbitrary decree and imputation made them so. Now far be it from any christian to assert, that God can falsely impute sin to any man! In a word, λovieoa, and imputare, is to reckon, or to account a thing to any man, or to charge him with it, or lay the charge of it upon him." This action therefore, on God's part, must suppose, in the very nature of it, some action done by the posterity of Adam which is blameworthy, and may be justly charged upon them, before there can be any ground for imputation of it; and this shews that it is impossible that the imputation should be the very thing that renders them blameworthy, or persons worthy to be charged with guilt. And yet, if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputation, it must be ours only because it is by God imputed to us, and not imputed because it is ours; that is, God by this imputation must make us sinners, and not find us such: For this imputation is the action of the judge, and not of the supposed criminal; remove, or take away, this action, and no crime can be charged upon him. In fine, if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputation, it deserves condemnation only by the same imputation, that is, by the action of God: That therefore we deserve condemnation for it, is to be ascribed directly to the action of God, and only by accident to the action of Adam. Whence then, according to this opinion, is our destruction, but of that God who makes us worthy of condemnation, by imputing to us that sin which by his imputation only we stand guilty of? (4.) We are not guilty of any other sin of Adam; therefore we are not guilty of the first sin of Adam. "For answer to this, they are driven to confess," saith Bishop Davenant," that this depends on the free constitution of the divine will; for (virtual inclusion in, or) natural propagation (from the loins of Adam) would not have charged us with the guilt of any sin personally committed by him, had not God enacted and constituted a decree that it should be so, when it stood in his power and pleasure to have ordered it otherwise." Therefore this sin of Adam is not ours because he committed it; but because God, of mere will, decreed and constituted it should be so, "when he might have ordered it otherwise;" and so there is nothing that makes this sin ours, but the mere will of God. And surely then God must be the author of it, because it is the will of God alone which makes the first sin of Adam ours, more than the second, of which it is confessed we are not guilty. Nor is there any other reason why we are more guilty of it, than of his other sins, but this will of God. As then we become sinners in our own persons, only by willing that action which is evil should be ours, so we become sinners in the person of Adam, only by the will of God that his evil action should be ours; and had it not been his pleasure so to will, it had not been ours. To make this still more evident, let it be noted that, in every sin of commission, there is required not only the will of the Creator forbidding that action, but also the will of the creature chusing to do what is forbidden. But in this supposed original sin, there is no will of ours chusing this forbidden action more than any other sin of Adam; it was not therefore, upon that account, our sin: it remains then, that it was only so by the will of the Creator. If it be replied, that "the action and will of Adam was ours also," I ask whether it was so by its own nature, or only by the free decree and will of God. If only by the latter, it clearly follows that his actions are made and accounted ours by the mere will of God, and so that only renders it our sin. If from its own nature, then all his other sinful wills and actions must be ours also; for what agrees to the will and actions of Adam, from the nature of them, must agree to every will and action of Adam at all times. Now this being confessedly false, it remains that it is solely from the arbitrary will of God that we are guilty of this, and not of any other sin of Adam. (5.) The compact they have forged betwixt God and Adam, to justify this imputation of his sin to his posterity, and the decrees ensuing upon that imputation, as it is forged out of their own brain, so it is a compact exceeding cruel, and plainly inconsistent with the justice, wisdom, and goodness of our gracious God. For surely, a good God, in all his compacts with the sons of men, designs their good or their advantage; for so it is with all the other compacts God ever made with man. But God could not design the good of man by that compact upon the foreseen event, of which he had before made his absolute decrees of election and reprobation. Secondly. As for the other part of this compact, that " Adam continuing innocent, should have begot children in his own likeness, that is, partakers of his own original righteousness,”—that could produce no proportionable advantage to his posterity: For (i.) his righteousness being defectible, he could have only derived upon them a defectible righteousness, which must have left them still as liable to fall as he himself was; and then their posterity must have been in the same sad case in which Adam's fall had placed his posterity. And, (ii.) his sin, had he fallen after he had begotten ten children, must have involved all the rest in this sad doom. So that his whole righteous life could have only procured to his posterity a defectible righteousness, liable continually to interruption by the sin of any one of his posterity; and that throughout all times and ages of the world: Whereas, one single transgression of his, was, by this compact, to render his whole race obnoxious to eternal misery; and by this eternal decree of reprobation, upon this foreseen fall, to render the far greatest part of them inevitably subject to that misery. Again, this compact plainly seems to have been invented to excuse God from cruelty, in subjecting myriads of men and infants to the most direful and lasting torments; which, without this imaginary pact, he could not with the least pretence of justice do. Moreover, did not God know, before this compact, it would only tend by the fall of Adam to the unavoidable ruin of myriads of souls, which otherwise would have contracted no such guilt, and therefore would have been obnoxious to no such misery, had not this compact and decree been made? What therefore did he, by making this decree, but subject so many precious souls to an inevitable ruin? How therefore could he contrive and make such a decree and compact, without being willing that so many men and infants should be for ever miserable by it? Since he who wills the cause, wills also the effect, which, certainly and inevitably, without their action, follows from it. If in favour of these imaginations it be said, that "the scripture expressly teacheth, that in Adam all have sinned; and by the disobedience of one many were made sinners';" to this I have given a sufficient answer in the note upon those words, shewing (1.) that these words may and must have a metonymical sense, because of the absurdities which follow from the formal acceptation of them. And, (2.) because the comparison made betwixt the first Adam and the effects of his disobedience, and the second Adam, and the effects of his obedience to the death, require it; the Holy Ghost still speaking of his suffering for our sins in this metonymical sense; as it is (i.) when he is said to bear our sins, only because he bore the punishment due to them. (ii.) When he is said to be made sin for us;' he being made sin for us, not by contracting the guilt of it, but only suffering punishment for it in our stead. (iii.) When he is said to appear a second time Xwgis àμxprías, without sin,'" that is, without another sacrifice, in which he was to suffer for it; and that by sin (that is, by what he suffered when he made himself a sacrifice for it,) he condemned sin in the flesh. And (iv.) when he is said to be made a curse for us;' he being only so by suffering that death which the law styled "accursed," and not as being so in the sight of God. And (3.) because the opposite phrase, dínaıı natasa@noovтai,* required that the words ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεςάθησαν,† should be used in this sense: For when the apostle saith, by the obedience of one shall b a 2 Cor. v. 20.-Heb. ix. 28. many be made righteous,' it is evident in itself, and proved by three arguments, that he speaks not of Christ's active, but of his passive obedience or suffering death for us. Now by this passive obedience we cannot be made formally righteous, but only metonymically, by being made partakers of that freedom from condemnation and the guilt of sin, and the reconciliation which Christ purchased by his meritorious death and passion. III. ARGUMENT THIRD. This decree is false, both in the parts and the end of it. The parts of it are these two:— (1.) That "God hath from eternity elected a certain number of persons to salvation, leaving the rest under an absolute decree of reprobation or preterition; and that of this election or reprobation there can be no other cause but God's own free-will. For predestination," say they, "being an immanent act of the divine understanding cannot be conceived as dependent upon any foreseen acts of man's will, and therefore his foreseen faith, repentance, and perseverance cannot, in any good sense, be imagined antecedent causes, conditions, or motives to the divine predestination;" and that is metaphysicks, and the jargon of the schoolmen entirely ignorant of the true sense of scripture, made to countenance a decree reflecting so unworthily upon the honour of our gracious God, that it is not easy to conceive what could more visibly tend to the dishonour of his glorious name and attributes. (2.) That "in order to the accomplishing the salvation of his elect, he hath decreed to afford them that grace which shall infallibly and infrustrably bring them to salvation; whereas they who are comprised under the decree of reprobation, are left," say they, "infallibly to fail of eternal life," and so are left to fail of means which may bring them to eternal life, or to escape everlasting death. For they can only infallibly fail of the end, by failing of the means which may produce it: For since he that hath means by which he may be saved, may be saved; and he that hath means by which he may escape damnation, may escape damnation; he who by God's decree of reprobation, is left infallibly to fail of salvation, and consequently to be damned, must as infallibly be left without the means by which he may obtain salvation or escape damnation. (3.) "In the absolute election of those whom God hath thus appointed to salvation, he decreed," say they, "to glorify his mercy; |