Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

and Religon can afterwards furnish out for the Recovery of the Soul from the Dominion of Senfe, yet the Luftings of the Flesh are as it were fo many continual Rebellions rais'd against the fovereign Principle of our Being, and are at the fame Time so very intimate and powerful, as plainly fhews they are even neceffary to our Being, and interwoven with our very Constitution.

FROM hence, as from a Fountain of Uncleanness, iffues forth all the Impurity of our actual Tranfgreffions, because as all outward voluntary Actions proceed from fome inward Principle, and as we have here difcovered an intimate Principle of Defilement, hither we must trace back whatever Streams of Blacknefs and Iniquity we can difcover in any Part of our Life.

MOREOVER, this original Depravity has in it the Nature of Sin, because it is an evident Departure from that Purity and Uprightness of Being, in which the Almighty firft created Man: Concupifcenfe, tho' it breaks not out into Acts of Uncleannefs, tho' it be not indulged and fuffered

fuffered to run high in our very Thoughts, is nevertheless finful, it being the swelling of an inferior Faculty beyond its due Bounds; and as all Inverfions of Nature, all Defects and Redundances do in the Material World produce Deformity, fo in the Moral World they produce Sin: The Apoftle calls Sin the Tranfgreffion of the Law ; and every Inclination of the Soul to do what God forbids, or to omit what God commands, is a plain Contrariety to, is a Tranfgreffion of the Law of God. Farther yet, this Original Depravity lays us even under a Neceffity of Sinning actually; how far it is poffible for the Strength of Reason to bear up againft our Natural Corruptions, and to stop this Fountain of Iniquity from streaming forth into actual Tranfgreffions, would be difficult, and not much to our Purpose to determine: The Neceffity we here lie under, tho' not an abfolute one, is at least such an one as will never fail, tho' not an irresistible one, is nevertheless as certain as Circumftances can make it: Experience and the Confent of all Mankind will inform us that never any of the Sons

of

of Men was without Sin, Him only excepted, who was likewife the Son of God; and if we confider the Weakness of our fuperior, and the Strength of our inferior Faculties, the Prevalence of Temptations, and the violent Tendency of our Inclination towards vitious Indulgencies, we may easily be convinced that it is even impoffible that the Cafe fhould be otherwife. But left the Almighty fhould be thought to be the Author of Sin, we may explain the Neceffity here spoken of by two Paffages in Holy Scripture; where Job fays, Although Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble Spring out of the Ground, yet Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards: He means that Afflictions are neither cafual nor fatal; yet none of the Sons of Men was ever free from them; the prefent Order of Things, the infinite Variety of Calamities, and the Liableness of Mankind to incur them, make Afflictions a neceffary Portion unto us; they do it not fo regularly, yet as certainly befal us, as the Sparks fly upwards: Again, when our Bleffed Saviour declares, it is impoffible

but

but that Offences fhould come, He must be supposed to mean, not that Men are irrefiftibly constrain'd to give Offence, but that confidering the State of Pride and Ignorance, wherein Man ftands, it is impoffible, morally speaking, but that many Offences will arife: In like manner, Man is not abfolutely forced to commit Iniquity, yet with Fairnefs we may affirm, that all the Sons of Men, to the End of the World, will add the Pollution of Actual to that of Original Sin; and God will herein be entirely juftified: He made Man upright; but Man daily finds out many Inventions.

HITHERTO we have fhewn that all Mankind are Sinners, and that they are made fuch, i. e. they are fo by Nature and Conftitution; but the Text declares that we are made Sinners by one Man's Difobedience; and the Holy Scripture informs us, that it was the Tranfgreffion of our firft Parents which derived an univerfal Stain upon all their Pofterity: They were created in Righteoufnefs, with a full Ability to ftand, tho' under a Poffibility of falling: Had they flood, their Pofterity

Pofterity would have been created in Righteousness, as they were, and however liable to Temptations, yet of Strength and Power fufficient to overcome them : The Covenant they enter'd into with God was not only perfonal, but included their whole Species; the Tranfgreffion therefore which arofe from the Breach of that Covenant, and the Punishment of that Tranfgreffion involved their whole Race, as well as themselves, in Guilt and Mifery.

How is it that the Actual Sin of Adam became Original Sin unto us? (Original Sin, not because it was the first Sin that was ever committed, and becaufe it fo introduced Sin into the World, but because it is a Defilement of our Nature, which inheres in us originally, and commences with our Exiftence) How it is that what was involuntary in us fhould be imputed as Guilt unto us? In what manner it is fo imputed, on what Accounts it pleased the Almighty to difpofe of things in fuch a Train, that Streams of Corruption should flow down through all the Generations of Men, are Subjects too nice for common Enquiries,

« AnteriorContinuar »