his justice, and the terror of the world, he used the rights of his power and dominion over their relatives.

60. VI. Although God threatened this, and hath a right and power to do this, yet he did not often use his right, but only in such notable examples as were sufficient to all ages. to consign and testify his great indignation against those crimes, for the punishment of which he was pleased to use his right, the rights of his dominion. For although he often does miracles of mercy, yet seldom it is that he does any extraordinaries of judgment: he did it to Corah and Dathan, to Achan and Saul, to Jeroboam and Ahab; and by these and some more expressed his severity against the like crimes sufficiently to all ages.

61. VII. But his goodness and graciousness grew quickly weary of this way of proceeding. They were the terrors of the law, and God did not delight in them. Therefore, in the time of Ezekiel the prophet, he declared against them, and promised to use it no more, that is, not so frequently, not so notoriously, not without great necessity and charity, 'Ne ad parentum exempla succresceret improbitas filiorum:' "As I live, saith the Lord, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

62. VIII. The iniquity of the people, and the hardness of their heart, did force God to use this harsh course, especially since that then there was no declaration, or intermination, and threatening the pains of hell to great sinners. “Duritia populi ad talia remedia compulerat, ut vel posteritatibus suis prospicientes legi divinæ obedirent," said Tertullian. Something extraordinary was then needful to be done to so vile a people to restrain their sinfulness. But when the Gospel was published, and hell-fire threatened to persevering, and greater sinners, the former way of punishment was quite left off. And in all the Gospel there is not any one word of threatening passing beyond the person offending, "Desivit uva acerba" (saith Tertullian), “à patri-' bus manducata, dentes filiorum obstupefacere: unusquisque enim in suo delicto morietur:" "Now" (that is, in the time of the Gospel)," the sour grape of the fathers shall no more

set on edge the children's teeth, but every one shall die in his own sin."

63. Upon this account alone, it must needs be impossible to be consented to, that God should still, under the Gospel, after so many generations of vengeance, and taking punishment for the sin, after the publication of so many mercies, and so infinite a graciousness as is revealed to mankind in Jesus Christ, after the so great provisions against sin, even the horrible threatenings of damnation, still persevere to punish Adam in his posterity, and the posterity for what they never did.

64. For either the evil that falls upon us for Adam's sin, is inflicted upon us by way of proper punishment, or by right of dominion. If by a proper punishment to us, then we understand not the justice of it, because we were not personally guilty; and all the world says it is unjust directly to punish a child for his father's fault. "Nihil est iniquius quàm aliquem hæredem paterni odii fieri," said Seneca :-and Pausanias, the general of the Grecian army, would not punish the children of Attagines, who persuaded the Thebans to revolt to the Medes, φὰς τοῦ Μηδισμοῦ παῖδας οὐκ εἶναι μεταιτίους, "saying, the children were not guilty of that revolt:" and when Avidius Cassius had conspired against Mark Anthony, he wrote to the senate to pardon his wife and son-in-law; "Et quid dico veniam, cùm illi nihil fecerint ?"." But why" (says he)"should I say, pardon, when they had done nothing?" But if God inflicts the evil upon Adam's posterity, which we suffer for his sake, not as a punishment, that is, not making us formally guilty, but using his own right and power of dominion which he hath over the lives and fortunes of his creatures; then it is a strange anger which God hath against Adam, that he still retains so fierce an indignation, as not to take off his hand from striking after five thousand six hundred years, and striking him for that of which he repented him, and which in all reason we believe he then pardoned, or resolved to pardon, when he promised the Messias to him. To this I add this consideration; that it is not easily to be imagined how Christ reconciled the world unto his Father; if after the death of Christ, God is still so angry with mankind, so unappeased, that even the most innocent part of mankind may perish for Adam's sin; and the other are per

petually punished by a corrupted nature, a proneness to, sin, a servile will, a filthy concupiscence, and an impossibility of being innocent; that no faith, no sacrament, no industry, no prayers, can obtain freedom from this punishment.

65. Certain it is, the Jews knew of no such thing, they understood nothing of this economy, that the father's sin should be punished in the children by a formal imputation of the guilt; and therefore Rabbi Simeon Barsema said well, that" when God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, jure dominii, non pœnæ utitur,' he uses the right of empire,' not of justice, of dominion, not of punishment,'of a lord, not of a judge." And Philo blames it for the worst of institutions, when the good sons of bad parents shall be dishonoured by their fathers' stain, and the bad sons of good parents shall have their fathers' honour; rou vóμov dikálovτος ἕκαστον αὐτὸν, ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ, μὴ συγγενῶν, ἀρεταῖς ἐπαινοῦντος, ἢ κακίαις κολάζοντος ; “ for the law praises every one for their own, not for the virtue of their ancestors, and punishes not the fathers, but his own wickedness upon every man's head "." And therefore Josephus calls the contrary way of proceeding, which he had observed in Alexander, ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπον δίκην, a punishment above the measures of a man;' and the Greeks and Romans did always call it injustice.

Illic immeritam maternæ pendere linguæ

Andromedam pœnas injustus jusserat Hammon b.

a

And hence it is, that all laws forbear to kill a woman with child, lest the innocent should suffer for the mother's fault: and therefore this just mercy is infinitely more to be expected from the great Father of spirits, the God of mercy and comfort. And upon this account Abraham was confident with God; "Wilt thou slay the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the world do right?" And if it be unrighteous to slay the righteous with the wicked, it is also unjust to slay the righteous for the wicked. "Ferretne ulla civitas laborem istiusmodi legis, ut condemnetur filius aut nepos, si pater aut ayus deliquissent:" "It were an intolerable law, and no community would be governed by it, that the father or grandfather should sin, and the son or nephew should be punished."—I shall add no more testimonies, but b Ovid. M. iv. 669. Gierig. e Cicero, lib. 3. de Nat. Deor.

a Lib. de Pietate.

only make use of the words of the Christian emperors in their laws; "Peccata igitur suos teneant auctores: nec ulteriùs progrediatur metus, quàm reperiatur delictum":"Let no man trouble himself with unnecessary and melancholy dreams of strange, inevitable, undeserved punishments, descending upon us for the faults of others.'-The sin that a man does. shall be upon his own head only. Sufficient to every man is his own evil, the evil that he does, and the evil that he suffers.

SECTION IV.

Of the Causes of the universal Wickedness of Mankind. 66. But if there were not some common natural principle of evil introduced by the sin of our parent upon his posterity, how should all men be so naturally inclined to be vicious, so hard and unapt, so uneasy and so listless, to the practices of virtue? How is it that all men in the world are sinners, and that in many things we offend all? For if men 'could choose and had freedom, it is not imaginable that all should choose the same thing; as all men will not be physicians, nor all desire to be merchants. But we see that al men are sinners, and yet it is impossible that in a liberty of indifferency there should be no variety. Therefore we must be content to say, that we have only a liberty of adhesion or delight; that is, we so love sin that we all choose it, but cannot choose good.

67. To this I answer many things. 1. If we will suppose that there must now be a cause in our nature determining us to sin by an irresistible necessity, I desire to know why such principle should be more necessary to us than it was to Adam? What made him to sin when he fell? He had a perfect liberty, and no ignorance, no original sin, no inordination of his affections, no such rebellion of the inferior faculties against the superior as we complain of; or at least we say he had not, and yet he sinned. And if his passions did rebel against his reason before the fall, then so they may in us, and yet not belong of that fall. It was before the fall in him, and so may be in us, and not the effect of it. But the truth of the thing is this, he had liberty of choice, and chose

d L. Sancimus. c. de Pœnit.

ill, and so do we: and all men say, that this liberty of choosing ill, is still left to us. But because it is left here, it appears that it was there before, and therefore is not the consequent of original sin. But it is said, that as Adam chose ill, so do we; but he was free to good as well as to evil, but so are not we; we are free to evil, not to good; and that we are so, is the consequent of original sin. I reply, that we can choose good, and as naturally love good as evil, and in some instances more. A man cannot naturally hate God, if he knows any thing of him. A man naturally loves his parents. He naturally hates some sort of uncleanness. He naturally loves and preserves himself: and all those sins which are unnatural, are such which nature hates: and the law of nature commands all the great instances of virtue, and marks out all the great lines of justice. Τοιοῦτος μὲν οὖν ὁ τοῖς λογικοῖς γένεσι ἐνουσιωμένος ὅρκος, μὴ παραβαίνειν ὑπ ̓ αὐτοῦ (Θεοῦ) διορισJévras vóμovç. "It is a law imprinted in the very substance of our natures, and incorporated in all generations of reasonable creatures, not to break or transgress the laws which are appointed by God." Here only our nature is defective; we do not naturally know, nor yet naturally love, those supernatural excellences, which are appointed and commanded by God as the means of bringing us to a supernatural condition. That is, without God's grace, and the renovation of the Spirit of God, we cannot be saved. Neither was Adam's case better than ours in this particular. For that his nature could not carry him to heaven, or indeed to please God in order to it, seems to be confessed by them who have therefore affirmed him to have had a supernatural righteousness: which is affirmed by all the Roman party. But although in supernatural instances it must needs be that our nature is defective; so it must needs have been in Adam: and therefore the Lutherans (who, in this particular, dream not so probably as the other), affirming that justice was natural in Adam, do yet but differ in the manner of speaking, and have not at all spoken against this; neither can they, unless they also affirm that to arrive at heaven was the natural end of man. For if it be not, then neither we nor Adam could by nature do things above nature; and if God did concreate grace with Adam, that grace was nevertheless grace, for being given him ast soon as he was made: for even the Holy Spirit may be given