The humiliation of the Sonne of God by his becomming the Son of man, by taking the forme of a servant, and by his sufferings under Pontius Pilat, &c. Or The eighth book of commentaries vpon the Apostles Creed: continued by Thomas Jackson Dr. in Divinitie, chaplaine to his Majestie in ordinarie, and president of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford. Divided into foure sections.

CHAP. V. Of the first sinne of Angels and man, and wherein it did especially consist.

1 WIth the nature of sinne in generall, or according to that extent proposed in the beginning of the former book, I meddle not in these present Com∣mentaries, but have reserved them to another work already begun in a Dialect more capable of such schoole nicities or disquisitions, than our English is. About the nature or specifi∣call quality of the sinne of Lucifer (so it hath pleased the Ancients to stile that prince of the collapsed Angels) some question there is amongst Divines, and the like about the quality or nature of our first Parents sinne: as whether one or both of them were pride or infidelity. But infidelity in its proper use and signification, is rather a symp∣tome, or concomitant of many sinnes precedent, than any one sinne; a distrust of Gods mercy for pardoning sinnes committed. It is to my capacity unconceivable how the first sinne of what crea∣ture soever should be infidelitie; or how the first degree of infidelity could find entrance into man or Angel, without some positive forerunning sin. But if by infidelity those Divines, whose ex∣pressions in this point I cannot approve, meane no more than incogitancie or want of considera∣tion, wee shall accord upon the matter. For

without the omission of somewhat which they ought to have done, neither man nor Angel could have sinned so positively and grosly, as both of them did. Both were bound to have made the goodnesse of their Creator in making them such glorious creatures as they were, the choise and most constant object of their first thoughts and contemplations. But through want of stirring up that grace of God, which they received in their creation, or by not exercising their abilities to reflect upon the goodnesse and greatnesse of their Creator, they were surprized with a desire of proper excellency, or of greater dignity than they were capable of. By this meanes that sinne which was begun by incogitancy, or want of re∣flection upon the true object of their blisse, was accomplished in pride. For pride naturally re∣sults in men from too much reflection upon their owne good parts. And whilest they compare themselves with themselves, (as our Apostle speaketh) they become unwise, or which is worse, whilest they compare their owne good parts with others meane parts (whether such indeed, or to their apprehension) they slide without re∣covery into that soule sinne of hypocrisie. All men by nature, (that is from the unweeded relikes of our first Parents pride) are prone to overvalue themselves, and to thirst after greater dignities than they deserve, or are qualified for. This pride or ambition in the Angels was presently secon∣ded with envy (as soule a vice, as pride it selfe, and its usuall compeere and companion) against

the new and last-made visible creature man, and envy did as speedily bring forth that malitious practice against our first Parents, which (as was said before) in probability did make their sinne more unpardonable than the sinne of our first Parents was.

2. But admitting both their first positive sins, to have been for nature or specificall qualitie, desire of proper excellencie, whose branches are pride and ambition: this position admitted, will beget a new question or disquisition, to wit, What manner of proper excellency, or what de∣gree of pride it was, for which their just Creator did punish them? Some are of opinion, that the height of that proper excellency, at which the Angels (at least one Angel) did aime, was perso∣nall union with the Sonne of God or God him∣selfe. But this opinion, without prejudice to the Authors or abettors of it, is very improbable, be∣cause the mystery that the Son of God should be∣come a creature, or take any created substāce into the unity of his person, was not for ought I have read, or can gather from any passage in Scripture, revealed either explicitly or implicitly before the fall of man, or before his convention for his Apo∣stacy from God; which was not untill the first day of the second weeke at soonest, when the world was (as we say) in facto, not in fieri onely, as it respectively was in the first weeke, or seven dayes. When this opinion, that the assumption of any creature into unity of person with the Sonne of God, or with any person in the blessed

Trinity, was either knowen or probably concei∣ved by man or Angel before the fall of man, shall be sufficiently proved, I shall yeeld assent to their opinion as probable, who think the first sinne of Lucifer was a desire or longing after personall union with the Sonne of God or God himselfe. No question but the old Serpent had sinned more grievously in the same kind than our first Parents did, when the woman by his cunning and malice, and the man by her prevarication did taste the forbidden fruit, in hope or expectation to bee made thereby like to Elohim, or God himselfe.

3. But was it possible that either the collapsed Angels, or man by their suggestion, should at∣tempt or desire to bee equall with God, or to bee Gods Almighty? To bee in all points coequall with God, was perhaps more than Lucifer him∣selfe did desire: yet that even our first Parents desired to bee in some sort or other equall with God, is probable from the Apostles character of the Sonne of God [Hee being, saith hee, in the forme of God, thought it no robbery to bee equall with God.] This to my understanding implies, that the robbery or sacriledge committed by our first Parents for which the Sonne of God did humble and ingage himselfe to make satisfaction, was their proud or haughty attempt to be equal with God, at lest in knowledge of good and evill. And yet, as was said before, the collapsed Angels had doubtlesse sinned more presumptuously, before they tempted our first Parents to the like sinne. Neither man nor Angel could have affected equa∣lity

in any one attribute with their Creator, much lesse in all or most, so they had made his glory, power, or majesty, the chiefe or principall object of their first contemplations. But how farre the previal sinne of omitting this duty, might let loose their strong and swift imaginations unbal∣lanced with experience, or what entrance it might work for that desperate and positive sinne of Ambition, or seeking to bee equall or like to God for power and wisdome; God, and they one∣ly know, if haply they now know, or perfectly remember the maner of their first transgressions. Many things, many learned and wise men doe, and attempt more, through incogitancy, want of consideration (or ad pauca respicientes) which by men of meaner parts would bee suspected for a spice of madnesse, if they had taken them into serious consideration before.

4. There is no Christian man, I am perswa∣ded, this day living (unlesse he be stark mad) who if this interrogatory were propounded unto him in expresse termes; [whether doe you think your selfe altogether as wise, as God the Father, Sonne, and holy Ghost,] but would answere negatively, I am not. And yet how many writers in our time, through forgetfulnesse to put this or the like in∣terrogatory to themselves, when they set pen to paper, have continued for many yeares together grievously sicke of our first Parents first disease, whatsoever that were; yet not sick of it in expli∣cit desires or attempts to bee every way equall with God, but in implicit presumptions that they

are altogether equall with him in wisdome and knowledge, at lest for the governing of this uni∣verse from the beginning of it to the end, and for the dispensing of mercy and justice towards men and Angels, before they had any beginning of being, and for ever, even world without end af∣ter this visible world shall be dissolved. To give a true and punctuall answere to all their presump∣tuous contrivances, or to accept their challenges in this kinde, would require more skill in Arts then most men are endowed with, and a great deale more time than any wise man or skilfull Artist can bee perswaded to mispend. It would be a very hard task for the cunningest needle wo∣man or other Professor of manuall or finger-my∣steries, to unweave or dissolve a spiders webb, threed by threed, after the same manner which shee did weave it: And yet a meane houswife or childe may with a wing or besome in a moment undoe all that the spider hath wrought in a whole yeare. And so may every Novice in Arts un∣buble all, that some great Clerks or Schoolemen have been twenty or thirty yeares in contriving or working, (as in setting forth maps or systems of the manner of Gods decrees before all times, or disputes about election or reprobation, as they are immanent acts in him) with that common but usefull exception, aut nihil, aut nimium. Their conclusions might (for ought I know) bee unan∣swerable and sound, upon supposition that they are every whit as wise as God. But this being not granted them, or the contradictory being

granted, [that the omnipotent Creator is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 wiser then they are:] the most elaborate and lon∣gest studied Treatises, which it hath been my hap upon these Arguments to see, afford no docu∣ment of greater strength or cunning than is exhi∣bited in the spiders web. The Authors of them tell us onely (and herein we beleeve them) what they themselves would have done, if they had been delegated to make Decrees or Acts for the government of men and Angels, or what God should have done if they had been of his privy counsell, when hee made all things visible, and in∣visible. But what God doth, hath done, or will doe according to the sole counsell of his most ho∣ly will, that, they shew us not, nor goe about to shew, whilest they runne the cleane contrary way to that which God our Father, and the Church our mother hath prescribed us to follow. Now the way which the English Church from the warrant of Gods word, to this purpose prescribes, is to admire, not to determine the equity of Gods Decrees before all times from contemplation of the manner of their execution or sweet dispositi∣on of his providence in time. It is a preposterous presumption to determine the manner how they have been, or shall bee executed, by prying into the projection or contrivance of the Almighty Judge, before man or Angel or any thing besides God himselfe had any being.

5. He sinned grievously that said in his heart, or secret unexamined thought, similis ero altissimo (whether this bee meant of Nebuchadnezzar or

some other earthly Tyrant onely, or literally of one or more of them, and mystically of Lucifer.) But they sinne no lesse for the act, which say in their hearts, or presuppose in their implicit thoughts altissimus est similimus mihi: the most high God hath determined nothing concerning men or Angel, otherwise than wee would have done, if we had been in his place. They prepo∣sterously usurpe the same power which God in his first Creation did justly exercise who though not expresly, yet by inevitable consequence, and by implicit thoughts make a God after their own image and similitude. A God not according to the relikes of that image wherein hee made our first Parents, but after the corruptions or deface∣ments of it, through partiality, envy, pride and hatred towards their fellow creatures. But of the originall of transforming the Divine nature into the similitude of mans corrupted nature, I have * 1.1 elswhere long agoe delivered my minde at large. And I would to God some (as I conje∣cture) offended with what I there observed (with∣out any reference or respect either to their per∣sons or their studies) had not verified the truth of my observations in a larger measure, than I then did conceived they could have been really ra∣tified, or exemplified by the meditation or pra∣ctice of any rationall man. This transformation of the Divine nature, which is in some sort or de∣gree common to most men, is (in the least degree of it) one of those works of the Devill, which the Sonne of God came into the world to dissolve

by doctrine, by example, and exercise of his po∣wer. But what bee the rest of those works be∣sides this? All (I take it) may be reduced to these generall heads. First, the actuall sinnes of our first Parents. Secondly, the remainder or effects of this sinne whether in our first Parents, or in their posteri∣tie, to wit, that more than habituall, or hereditary cor∣ruption which we call, sinne originall. Thirdly, sins adventitious or acquired, that is, such vitious acts, or habits, as doe not necessarily issue from that sinne which descends unto us from our first Parents, but are voluntarily produced in particular men, by their abuse of that portion of freewill which was left in our first Parents, and in their posterity, and that was a true freedome of will, though not to doe well, or ill, yet at lest inter mala: to doe lesse, or greater evill, or to doe this or that particular, ill, or worse. Originall sinne is rather in us ad modum habitus, than an habit properly so called. All other habituall sinnes or vices are not acquired but by many unnecessitated vicious acts: But to distinguish betweene vice and sinne, or betweene vicious habits and sinfull habits, is (to my capacity) a work (or attempt rather) of the same nature, as if one should goe about to divide a point into two portions; or a mathematicall line into two parallels.

6. Nor are these sinnes enumerated, nor sinne it self formally taken the onely works of the De∣vill which the Sonne of God came to destroy, but these sinnes with their symptomes, and re∣sultances. For the Devill sinneth from the begin∣ning in continuall tempting men to sinne, al∣though

his temptations doe not alwayes take ef∣fect. He sinneth likewise in accusing men before their Creator, or solliciting greater vengeance than their sinnes in favourable construction, de∣serve. Now that neither his temptations, nor accusations do alwayes finde that successe, which hee intends, this is meerely from the mercy and loving kindnesse of our Creator in sending his Sonne to dissolve the works of Satan. The ge∣nerall symptome or resultance of all sinne origi∣nall, or actuall, is servitude or slavery unto Satan, and the wages of this servitude is death: not this hereditary servitude onely, but death which is the wages of it, is the work of Satan. Yet a work which the Sonne of God doth not utterly destroy untill the generall resurrection of the dead. Nor shall it then bee destroyed in any, in whom the bonds of the servitude and slavery unto sinne have not been by the same Sonne of God dissolved, whilest they lived on earth. Hee was first mani∣fested in the flesh and forme of a servant to pay the ransome of our sinnes, and to untie the bonds and fetters of sinne in generall. Hee was mani∣fested in his resurrection to dissolve or breake the raigne of sinne within every one of us. For as the Apostle speaks, He died for our sinnes, and rose againe for our justification. And he shall lastly bee manifested, or appeare in glory utterly to de∣stroy sinne, and death. CHRIST (saith the A∣postle) was once offered to beare the sinnes of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appeare the se∣cond time without sin unto salvation, Heb. 9.28.

Notes

• * 1.1

  In the 5th. book of Com∣mentaries upon the Apostles Creed, or a Treatise containing the origi∣nall of un∣beliefe, &c. See the former Treatise, chap. 44.45. &c.