not naturally, for our natural innocence is but negative, that is, we have not consented to sin. The righteousness he had before his fall, I suppose was not only that, but also his doing many actions of obedience, and intercourse with God, even all which passed between God and himself till his eating the forbidden fruit: for he had this advantage over us. He was created in a full use of reason; we his descendants enter into the world in the greatest imperfection, and are born under a law, which we break before we can understand, and it is imputed to us as our understanding increases: and our desires are strongest when our understanding is weakest: and therefore by this very economy, which is natural to us, we must needs, in the condition of our nature, be very far from Adam's original righteousness, who had perfect reason before he had a law, and had understanding as soon as he had desires. This clause thus understood is most reasonable and true, but the effect of it can be nothing in prejudice of the main business, and if any thing else be meant by it, I cannot understand it to have any ground in Scripture or reason;' I am sure our church does not determine for it.

32. "And is inclined to evil.".

and

That every man is inclined to evil, some more, some less, but all in some instances, is very true: and it is an effect or condition of nature, but no sin properly. Because that which is unavoidable, is not a sin. 2. Because it is accidental to nature, not intrinsical and essential. 3. It is superinduced to nature, and is after it, and comes by reason of the laws which God made after he made our nature; he brought us laws to check our nature, to cross and displease, that by so doing we may prefer God before ourselves: this also with some variety; for in some laws there is more liberty than in others, and therefore less natural inclination to disobedience. 4. Because our nature is inclined to good and not to evil in some instances, that is, in those which are according to nature, and there is no greater endearment of virtue, than the law and inclination of nature in all the instances of that law. 5. Because that which is intended for the occasion of virtue and reward, is not naturally and essentially the principle of evil. 6. In the instances in which naturally we incline to evil, the inclination is naturally good, because it is to its proper object, but that it becomes morally evil, must be per

sonal, for the law is before our persons; it cannot be natural, because the law by which that desire can become evil is after it.

33. "So that the flesh lusteth against the spirit."

This clause declares what kind of inclination to evil is esteemed criminal; that which is approved, that which passeth to act, that which is personally delighted in, in the contention which is after regeneration or reception of the Holy Spirit; for the flesh cannot lust against the spirit in them that have not the Spirit; unless both the principles be within, there can be no contention between them, as a man cannot fight a duel alone, so that this is not the sin of nature, but of persons, for though potentially it is sin, yet actually and really it is none, until it resist the Spirit of God, which is the principle put into us to restore us to as good a state at least, as that was which we were receded from in Adam. By the way, it is observable that the article makes only concupiscence or lusting to be the effect of Adam's sin, but affirms nothing of the loss of the will's liberty, or diminution of the understanding, or the rebellion of the passions against reason, but only against the Spirit, which certainly is natural to it, and in Adam did rebel against God's commandments when it was the inlet to the sin, and therefore could not be a punishment of it.

"And therefore:"-The illative conjunction expressly declares, that the sense of the church of England is, that this corruption of our nature, in no other sense, and for no other reason, is criminal, but because it does resist the Holy Spirit: therefore it is not evil till it does so, and therefore if it does not, it is not evil. For if the very inclination were a sin, then when this inclination is contested against,-at the same time, and in the same things, the man sins and does well, and he can never have a temptation but he offends God; and then how we should understand St. James's rule, that " should count it all joy when we enter into temptation," is beyond my reach and apprehension. The natural inclination hath in it nothing moral, and therefore as it is good in nature, so it is not ill in manners; the supervening consent or dissent makes it morally good or evil.

we

34. In every person born into the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation."-

VOL. IX.

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Viz. When it is so consented to, when it resists and overcomes the Spirit of grace. For we, being divested of the grace given to the first Adam, are to be renewed by the Spirit of grace, the effect of the second Adam; which grace when we resist, we do as Adam did, and reduce ourselves back into the state where Adam left us. That was his sin and not ours, but this is our sin and not his; both of them deserve God's wrath and damnation, but by one he deserved it, and by the other we deserve it. But then it is true, that this corrupted nature deserves God's wrath, but we and Adam deserve not in the same formality, but in the same material part we do. He left our nature naked, and for it he deserved God's wrath; if we divest our nature of the new grace, we return to the same state of nature, but then we deserve God's wrath; so that still the object of God's wrath is our mere nature so as left by Adam; but though he sinned in the first disrobing, and we were imperfect by it, yet we sin not till the second disrobing, and then we return to the same imperfection, and make it worse. But I consider, that although some churches in their confessions express it, yet the church of England does not: they add the word 'eternal' to ، damnation; but our church abstains from that : therefore"God's wrath and damnation," can signify the same that ، damnation' does in St. Paul;-all the effects of God's anger. Temporal death, and the miseries of mortality, were the effects of Adam's sin, and of our being reduced to the natural and corrupted, or worsted state: or secondly, they may signify the same that ، hatred does in St. Paul, and in Malachi; "Esau have I hated," that is, 'loved him less,' or did not give him what he was born to: he lost the primogeniture, and the priesthood and the blessing. So do we naturally fall short of heaven. This is hatred or the wrath of God, and his judgment upon the sin of Adam to condemn us to a state of imperfection, and misery, and death, and deficiency from supernatural happiness, all which I grant to be the effect of Adam's sin, and that our imperfect nature de-. serves this, that is, it can deserve no better.

35. "And this infection of nature."

Viz. This imperfection,-not any inherent quality that by contact pollutes the relatives and the descendants, but this abuse and reproach of our nature, this stain of our nature,

by taking off the supernatural grace and beauties put into it, like the cutting off the beards of David's ambassadors, or stripping a man of his robe, and turning him abroad in his natural shame, leaving him naked as Adam and we were. But the word 'infection,' being metaphorical, may aptly signify any thing that is analogical to it: and may mean a natural habitude or inclination to forbidden instances; but yet it signifies a very great evil, for in the best authors, to be such ' by nature,' means an aggravation of it. So Carion in Aristophanes": "Ανθρωπος οὗτός ἐστιν ἄθλιος φύσει. This man is very miserable,' or 'miserable by nature:' and again;

Πάντως γὰρ ἄνθρωπον φύσει τοιοῦτον ἐς τὰ πάντα

Ἡγεῖσθέ μ' εἶναι, κοὐδὲν ἂν νομίζεθ ̓ ὑγιὲς εἰπεῖν ;

"Do you believe me to be such a man by nature, that I can speak nothing well?"

36. "Doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated."That is, all the baptized and unbaptized receive from Adam nothing but what is inclined to forbidden instances, which is a principle, against which, and above which, the Spirit of God does operate. For this is it which is called the lust of the flesh;' for so it follows, "whereby the lust of the flesh;" that is, the desires and pronenesses to natural objects, which by God's will came to be limited, ordered and chastised, curbed and restrained.

37. Called in Greek, póvnua σαprós."—

Here it is plain that the church of England, though she found it necessary to declare something in the fierce contention of the time, in order to peace and unity of expression, yet she was not willing too minutely to declare and descend to the particulars on either side, and therefore she was pleased to make use of the Greek word, of the sense of which there were so many disputes, and recites the most usual redditions of the word.

38. "Which some do expound, the wisdom, some the sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the law of God."—

These several expositions reciting several things, and the church of England reciting all indefinitely, but definitely declaring for none of them, does only in the generality affirm, that the flesh and spirit are contrary principles, that the

flesh resists the law of God, but the spirit obeys it,—that is, by the flesh alone we cannot obey God's law, naturally we cannot become the sons of God, and heirs of heaven, but it must be a new birth by a spiritual regeneration. The wisdom of the flesh,' that is, natural and secular principles, are not apt dispositions to make us obedient to the Law of God: 'sensuality,' that signifies, 'an habitual lustfulness.' 'Desires' signify actual lustings.' Affections' signify the natural inclination:' now which of these is here meant, the church hath not declared, but by the other words of the article, it is most probable, she rather inclines to render póvnua oapnis, by 'desires and sensuality,' rather than by affection or wisdom,' though of these also, in their own sense, it is true to affirm, that they are not subject to the law of God: there being some foolish principles, which the flesh and the world are apt to entertain, which are hinderances to holiness: and the affection, that is, inclination to some certain objects, being that very thing which the laws of God have restrained more or less in several periods of the world, may, without inconvenience to the question, be admitted to expound Opóvnua σαρκός.

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39. "And although there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized:"

That is, this concupiscence, or inclination to forbidden instances, is not imputed to the baptized nor to the regenerate, that is, when the new principle of grace and of the Spirit is put into us, we are reduced to as great a condition, and as certain an order and capacity of entering into heaven, as Adam was before his fall; for then we are drawn from that mere natural state where Adam left us: and therefore, although these do die, yet it is but the condition of nature, not the punishment of the sin. For Adam's sin brought in death, and baptism and regeneration do not hinder that, but it takes away the formality of it, it is not a punishment to such, but a condition of nature, as it is to infants; for, that even to them also there is no condemnation for their original concupiscence, is undeniable and demonstratively certain upon this account. Because, even the actual desires and little concupiscences of children are innocent, and therefore, much more their natural tendencies and inclinations. For if a principle be criminal, if a faculty be a sin, much