not cast our eye always to the clog which we draw; that may much dishearten us: but "look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith," (he that carries us through these difficulties, that gives us weapons;" "that teacheth our hands to war, and our fingers to fight;" that is our captain to lead us, and our second, ouuuaxos, our fellow-combatant), that fighteth against sin in us by his grace. Look what he did: what' contradiction he endured, "lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." minds." Look what he promiseth; a victory against our lusts, and a crown after our victory. Look when he cometh; it is yet but a little while;' the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, the Lord is at hand: call to him, he is within the voice of thy prayer, he will come to strengthen thee wait upon him; he is within the eye of thy faith, he will come to reward thee. Look upon the cloud of witnesses, those that are now the church of the first-born, and have their palms in their hands: they all went through the same combat; they were all beset with alike infirmities; they were all men of the same passions with us: let us be men of the same patience with them.

Now, lastly, Consider the propagation of this sin; which may, therefore, well be called an old man,' because it dies not, but passeth over from one generation to another. A man's actual sins are personal, and therefore intransient ; they begin and end in himself: but original sin is natural; and therefore, with the nature, it passeth over from a man to his posterity. It is an entail that can never be cut off: it hath held from Adam, and will so continue to the world's end, holding all men in an unavoidable service and villanage unto Satan, the prince of this world. In human tenures, if a man leave a personal estate to all his children indefinitely, without singling out and designing this portion to one, and that to another, though it be true to say, that there is nothing in that estate which any one of the children can lay an entire claim unto as his own, but that the rest have joint interest in it (for the children, though many in persons, are yet but one proprietary, in regard of right in the estate of their father, till there be a severance made); yet, notwithstanding, a partition may be legally procured, and there is a kind of virtual or fundamental severance before, which was the ground of that which is afterwards real and

legal. But now, in this wretched inheritance of sin, which Adam left to all his posterity, we are to note this mischief in the first place, That there is no virtual partition, but it is left whole to every child of Adam. All have it; and yet every one hath it all too. So that as philosophers say of the reasonable soul, "That it is whole in the whole, and that it is whole in every part;" so we may say of original concupiscence; it is, "Tota in genere humano," and "Tota in quolibet homine;" all in mankind, and all in every particular man. There is no law of partition for one man to have to him, in peculiar, the lusts of the eye; another, to him the lusts of the tongue; another, to him the lusts of the ear, &c. but every man hath every lust originally as full as all men together have it.

Secondly, We are to note a great difference further between the soul and sin in this regard; though all the soul be in every member, as well as in the whole body, yet it is not, in the same manner and excellency, in the part, as in the whole. For it is in the whole to all the purposes of life, sense and motion; but, in the parts, the whole soul serves but for some special businesses. All the soul is in the eye, and all in the ear, but not in either to all purposes; for it sees only in the eye, and it hears only in the ear. But original sin is all in every man; and it serves in every man to all purposes: not in one man only to commit adultery,-in another, idolatry,-in another, murder or the like; but, in every man, it serves to commit sin against all the law, to break every one of God's commandments. A whole thing may belong wholly unto two men in several, by divers ways of propriety, or unto sundry purposes: a house belongs wholly to the landlord for the purpose of profit and revenue, and wholly to the tenant for the purpose of use and inhabitation; but it seems, in ordinary reason, impossible for the same thing to belong wholly to sundry men, in regard of all purposes for which it serves. But such an ample propriety hath every man to original sin, that he holds it all, and to all purposes for which it serves. For though some sins there are, which cannot by some men be properly committed, (properly I say, because by way of provocation, or occasion, or approbation, or the like, one may participate in the sins which another commits) as a king cannot be disobedient to his superiors in

government, because he hath no superiors; a layman cannot commit the sins of a minister, an unmarried man the sins of a husband, &c.; yet this disability ariseth out of the exigence of personal conditions, but no way out of the limitedness or impotency of original sin; which, in every man, serves to all the purposes which can consist with that man's condition; and as his condition alters, so is it likewise fruitful unto new sins. And these are two great aggravations of this sinful inheritance. That it whole comes unto every man; and that every man hath it unto all the purposes for which it serves,

Thirdly, It is to be observed, that in original sin (as in all other) there are two things, deordination or sinfulness, and guilt or obligation unto punishment. And though the former of these be inseparable from nature in this life, yet every man that believeth and repenteth, hath the damnation thereof taken away; it shall not prove unto him mortal. But now this is the calamity;-Though a man have the guilt of this sin taken off from his person by the benefit of his own faith, and the grace of Christ to him; yet still both the deordination and the guilt passeth over unto his posterity by derivation from him. For the former, the case is most evident, "whatsoever is born of flesh, is flesh':-no man can bring a clean thing out of an uncleanTM: an evil root must bring forth evil branches, a bitter fountain corrupt streams":" leaven will derive sourness into the whole mass, and the father's treason will stain the blood of all his posterity. And it is as certain for the latter, that though guilt and punishment may be remitted to the father, yet from him it may be transmitted to his child. Every parent is the channel of death to his posterity, "Totum genus, de suo semine infectum, suæ etiam damnationis traducem fecit," saith Tertullian; Adam did diffuse and propagate damnation unto all mankind. Neither is it any injustice P, that, from a cursed root, should proceed branches fit for nothing but the fire. As a Jew that was circumcised, brought forth an uncircumcised son; as clean corn sowed comes up with chaff and stubble; as the seed of a good olive, brings forth a wild

1 John iii. 6. m Job xiv. 4: n James iii. 11, 12. • Tertul. de testimon. animæ, cap. 3. P Nec mirum, nec injustum, quod radix proferat damnata damnatos. August. cont. Jul. lib. 3. cap. 12.

olive; so is it with the best that are: their graces concur not to natural generation, and therefore from them is nothing naturally propagated. For, first, the wiping off guilt, while the fault abides, is an act of grace and pardon. Now pardons are ever immediate from special favour, from direct grant; and therefore cannot run in the blood, nor come to a man in the virtue of his birth, or by derivation; especially where the pardon runs not in general terms, but personally, by way of privilege, and exemption, and that too upon certain conditions, the performance and virtue whereof is intransient, and cannot avail any by way of imputation or redundancy. Secondly, though the personal guilt be off from the man, yet the ground of that guilt, the damnableness or liableness to be imputed unto punishment is inseparable from sin. Though sin be not mortal de facto,' so as to bring damnation to the person justified, yet it never ceaseth to be mortal de merito,' that is, to be damnable in itself, in regard of its own nature and obliquity,-though, in event and execution, the damnable virtue of sin be prevented by faith which cures it, and by repentance which forsakes and cuts it off. For we must observe, that to merit damnation belongs to the nature of sin; but to bring forth damnation belongs to the accomplishment and finishing' of sin, when it is suffered to grow to its measure, never interrupted, never prevented. God hath patience towards sinners, and waiteth for their repentance, and doth not presently pour out all his wrath; if, in this interim, men will be persuaded, in the day of their peace, to accept of mercy offered, and to breaks off sins before the ephah be full, then their sins shall not end in death. But if they neglect all God's mercy and go on still, till there be no remedy,-then sin grows to a ripeness, and will undoubtedly bring forth death. Since therefore the nature of sin passeth to posterity, even when the guilt thereof is remitted in the parent, needs must the guilt thereof pass too, till, by grace, it be done away.

Fourthly, In original sin there is a two-fold denomination or formality; it is both a sin, and a punishment of sin; for

t

4 Ex oleæ semine non fit nisi oleaster. Aug. de Nup. et Concup. 1. 1. c. 19. James i. 15. Dan. iv. 27. Ezek. xviii. 30. Αταξία. Αντιμωρία. Remonstrant. in exam, censuræ, c. 7. fol. 85.

it is an absurd conceit of some men, who make it an impossibility for the same thing, to be both a sin and a punishment. When a prodigal spends all his money upon uncleanness, is not this man's poverty, both his sin and his punishment? when a drunkard brings diseases on his body, and drowns his reason, is not this man's impotency and sottishness, both his sin and his punishment? Indeed sin cannot rightly be called an inflicted punishment, for God doth not put it into any man; yet it no way implies contradiction, but rather abundantly magnifies the justice and wisdom of Almighty God, to say That he can order sin to be a scourge and punishment to itself:" And so St. Austin calls it "a penal viciousness" or corruption. So that, in the derivation of this sin, we have unto us propagated the very wrath of God. It is like Aaron's rod; on our part, a branch that buddeth unto iniquity; and on God's part, a Serpent that stingeth unto death. So that Adam is a two-fold cause of this sin in his posterity. A meritorious cause; he did deserve it by prevarication, as it was a punishment; and an efficient cause, he doth derive it by contagion, as it is a sin. And this is a wretchedness of this sin, that it is not only a means to bring the wrath of God upon us, but is also some part and beginning of the wrath of God in us, and so is, as it were, the earnest and first-fruits of damnation. Not as if it were infused by God into our nature; for we have it put into us no other way, but by seminal contagion and propagation from Adam; but God, seeing man throw away and waste that original righteousness which he at the first put into him, and appointing him to be the head and fountain of all mankind, not only in nature, but 'in foro' too, in regard of legal proceeding,-withheld from him and his seed, that gift which was freely by him in the creation bestowed, and wilfully by Adam, in the fall, rejected; and adjudged this misery upon him, that he should pass over, to all his posterity, the immediate fruit of his prevarication,-which was original sin, contracted by his own default, and, as it were, issuing out of his wilful disobedience upon him, because

y Rom. v. 12.

* Pœnalis Gen. v. 3.

Non est lex æquior ulla Quàm necis artifices arte perire sua. vitiositas. Aug. de perfect. Instit. cap. 4.