The paraselene dismantled of her cloud, or, Baxterianism barefac'd drawn from a literal transcript of Mr. Baxter's, and the judgment of others, in the most radical doctrines of faith, compar'd with those of the Orthodox, both conformist and nonconformist, and transferr'd over by way of test, unto the Papist and Quaker / by Thomas Edwards ...

Baxterian.

THey feign us to have been in Adam by a certain Covenant, more than we were by natural In∣existency: And that this Sin was arbitrarily by God through that Covenant im∣puted to us, further than we were guilty of it by any natural In-being or Deriva∣tion; as if God made all Men Sinners by his arbi∣trary imputation of that to them, which in their Natures they were all re∣ally guilty of. Mr. Baxt. Brev. Justi. Part 1. p. 86.

If you say, Adam was legally as many Persons as are born of him in Sin, I deny it: He was the Root of all his Posterity, and they were in him seminal∣ly and virtually, but not personally, actually, or im∣putatively: But by one

Man's Disobedience, as their Root and Cause, many are made Sinners: And by one Man's Obedience, as the Root and Cause, all Belie∣vers are made righteous. P. 113.

Do you mean that Guilt resulteth from God's part of the Covenant, or from A∣dam's, or from his Posteri∣ties? Not from ours, for we existed not, and made no such Covenant; not from Adam's part (antecedent to natural Derivation.) For, 1. No Man can prove that ever Adam made such a Covenant. 2. Or that God gave him any such Power (much less Com∣mand) to bring Sin and Death on his Posterity by his Consent, or Will, or Con∣tract, further than by the Law of Nature they must derive it from him if he sinned. 3. Not by God's Covenant-act. For, 1. No such Covenant of God can be shewn that made Men Sinners further than natural Derivation did. 2. Else God should be the Author of Sin, even of all Mens original Sin, if his Arbi∣trary Covenant made them Sinners where Nature did not. P. 103. (Observe these infernal Positions, if God impute Sin to him that committed it not, he must be the Author of it; if Sin materially be imputed unto Christ, he must of course be a real Sinner; and if the A∣bettors of this gracious and

mysterious Doctrine of Im∣putation appear in defence of the same, they must be reputed Antinomians. Re∣joice O Antinomians, if this be your Crime, for your God and your Christ conjointly suffer with you!) And so that God's Cove∣nant and Imputation made Adam's Sin ours, further than it is by natural Pro∣pagation, not truly distin∣guishing between our being personally in him, and being but virtually and seminally in him: And feigning God to make Adam not only the natural Father and Root of all Mankind, but also arbi∣trarily, a constituted Re∣presenter of all the Persons that should spring from him; and so that God made them Sinners that were none, and that before he made them Men. Part 2. p. 7.

We say not that any of the Adult are damned for original Sin only; neither that this Sin is now an ir∣remediable Evil: but there is a sufficient Remedy grant∣ed of God in the Covenant of Grace, and that to a Par∣ticipation, Application and Efficiency of the same; there are many subordinate Me∣diums prescribed unto Men, according unto the special use or abuse whereof Men now are judged. Mr. Baxt. Method. Theol. Part 1. p. 357.

It will be said, because God so covenanted with

Adam, that he should stand or fall for himself and his Posterity. I answer, That there was any such Cove∣nant that if he stood his Posterity should all stand, or be confirmed and saved, is more than ever I found in the Scripture, or can prove, or do believe; but that it would have been to the benefit of his Posterity I doubt not. And that his Fall was to the Guilt and Corruption of his Posterity I doubt not: but (as I said) not without and beyond their natural Interest in him, and derivation from him as the reason of it: And we were as much naturally in our next Parents. The first Law said, [If thou sin thou shalt be filius mortis, and so shall those that are propagated of thee.] The second Covenant saith, [For thy original and actual Sin Death is thy due, but I will give thee a Pardon and re∣deeming Grace procured by the Righteousness of Christ.] But note, that this Covenant pardoneth our original Sin as from Adam; and yet it followeth not that we had none because it is pardoned: even so it pardoneth the Guilt of our next Parents Sins, and therefore we had it to be pardoned: both are pardonable to us, therefore we had both. Mr. Baxt. End of Doctrinal Controv. chap. 10. Parag. 13. (So that no one of the whole Race of Mankind was ever

born under the juridical external charge of this Sin, it being done away by the Covenant made with A∣dam in the promised Seed, and the universal Grace that he received both for himself and all his Poste∣rity.)

We no way doubt to affirm that ever any one was damned for original Sin. Corvinus.

We were not in Adam distinct Persons really; for our Persons then existed not, and therefore did not inexist. God doth not repute us to have been what indeed we were not; for he judgeth truly, and is not mistaken: Therefore he judgeth not Peter and John to have been those Persons in Adam then, nor Adam's Person the same with theirs. We were seminally or vir∣tually in Adam when he sinned; which is but that he had that virtus genera∣tiva, from which we na∣turally sprang in time: but to be virtually in him, is not to be personally in him, but potentially, it being as to Existence terminus dimi∣nuens. Mr. Baxt. End of Doctr. Controv. chap. 10. Heads 2, 3, 4, 5.

Adam sinned in his own proper Person only, and there is no reason why God should impute that Sin un∣to Infants. Borraeus.

We receive our original Guilt and Pravity imme∣diately from our next Pa∣rents,

and but remotely from Adam; it could never have come to us but through them from whom we re∣ceive our Nature; from them we receive the Guilt and Pravity of our Nature. And the Guilt of our Pa∣rents Sins being of a more diminute nature than that of our own actual Sin (cae∣teris paribus) it falleth not so fully on us, as it did on the Committers themselves, nor as our own do. Mr. Baxt. Ibid. §. 9, 15.

And tho Mr. Baxter makes a fair show of Im∣putation of original Sin, in Method. Theol. Part 1. pag. 358, 359, 360. yet this Imputation he ex∣plains, or what he means by it.—So they talk much of Imputation, and neither know nor tell you what Imputation is; but take it mostly to be that which even Dr. Crisp cal∣leth a charging God with Falshood; as if it were his reputing, reckoning, esteem∣ing, or supposing us to be what indeed we are not, or to have done or suffered what we did not, or to have what we have not: whereas Paul meaneth no∣thing (and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signi∣fieth nothing) but a true ac∣counting us to be what we are, and to have done what we did, and to have what we indeed have. And to impute Righteousness to us, insignisieth but truly to re∣pute, account, or judg us

righteous. Mr. Baxter's Brev. Justif Prol.

Whereas he (viz. the Arminian, against whom Dr. Davenant wrote) sup∣poseth that Adam's Sin can∣not be truly accounted a personal Offence in his Poste∣rity, both the Scripture and the common Consent of Di∣vines run against him. For tho it be not personal in the same sense wherein actual Sins done by Men, having the use of Reason and Free∣will, are said to be their personal Actions, yet it is in another sense voluntary and personal, because it was so done that every singular Person of Mankind is in∣volved in that very volun∣tary Sin, and in the Guilt of Punishment or Death due thereunto. So saith the Apostle, Rom. 5. Sin and Death entred into the World by one: But how? In quan∣tum in eo omnes peccaverunt. And again, By one Man's Disobedience many were made Sinners. Haleuscio to this purpose saith, Secundùm Augustinum, concedimus quod non punitur parvulus pro cul∣pa patris, sed pro culpa sua, propriè loquendo. Non enim dicit Apostolus quòd solùm Adam peccavit, sed dicit quòd omnes peccaverunt in Adam: Erat enim in Adam non solùm volunt as unius sin∣gularis personae, sed volunt as universalis Naturae. Ada∣mo cadente à justitiâ origi∣nali, cecidit etiam quaelibet volunt as posterorum. Caret

enim volunt as cujustibet illâ certitudine quam habuisset si Adam stetisset, i. e. We grant, according to Au∣gustine, that speaking pro∣perly, a little Child is not punished for the fault of his Father, but for his own fault. But the Apostle doth not say that Adam alone sinned, but says that all have sinned in Adam: for in Adam there was not only the Will of his own sin∣gular Person, but the Will of his universal Nature. Adam falling from origi∣nal Righteousness, every (distinct) Will of his Po∣sterity fell also.—Last of all; Whereas he taketh it for granted, that Adam's Sin is only imputed unto his Children, and so they are determined to Death and eternal Torments for a Sin only imputed, he is contrary to the Judgment of the Catholick Church: for it is generally held against the Pelagians, that as Adam's Sin was the Sin of every Person that was a Member of him, so likewise Adam's Crookedness of Will was not barely imputed, but actually propagated to eve∣ry singular Person derived from his Loins.

Object. 1. By the Armi∣nian—Adam's Sin is the Sin of Man's Nature only, and no Man's personal Trans∣gression but Adam's: it was neither committed nor con∣sented to by any of his Poste∣rity in their own Persons.

Answ. Adam's first Sin com∣mitted in the state of Inno∣cency, wherein by God's appointment gessit personam generis humani, was every Mans personal Sin, and was consented unto by every Man's Will, because in A∣dam there was not only the Will of one singular Man, but the universal Will of all Mankind, and of every singular Person, as before hath been declared. And I would fain know, if A∣dam's first Transgression was his only, and no Man's else, how every singular Per∣son is by God himself for that very Transgression esteemed liable unto Death. Durandus answereth the Doubt: Tho it were not voluntary actu personali in∣fantium (who were not yet in rerum naturâ) yet it was voluntary voluntate primi hominis, quae fuit interpre∣tative voluntas omnium. And if God himself and the Catholick Church inter∣pret this Will of Adam in disobeying God's Com∣mandment, to be so far forth our personal Sin, that every singular Person standeth culpable of it, and liable unto Punishment for it, we must not give Credit either to the old Pelagians, or new Remonstrants, when they tell us that such a De∣cree cannot stand with God's Mercy.

Object. 2. That it was the Sin of our Nature, not by Generation, but by God's

own voluntary Imputa∣tion. Answ. Original Sin sometimes noteth that voluntary and free Transgression of the Divine Commandment, whereby Adam's perso∣nal Disobedience made every singular Person a Sinner in the sight of God, as before hath been said.

Sometimes again it noteth that Corrupti∣on or Pravity of the Will and of the whole Soul which remained in Adam after his Re∣bellion, and which by him is traduced unto every singular Person, descending naturally from him: Neither of these becometh the Sin of any particular Per∣son otherwise than by Generation, tho not without a free Consti∣tution of God's Will. And as for the latter, it is in all singular Per∣sons of Mankind, not only by Imputation, but by real Inhesion or Contagion, as the whole Church con∣fesseth.

Object. 3. God par∣doned Adam who did actually and freely com∣mit it in his own Per∣son; for so it is gene∣rally believed. Answ. God pardoned Adam, but no otherwise than upon his repenting and believing in the pro∣mised

Seed: which be∣ing Acts performed by him after he had lost his original Justice, in them he sustained not the common Person of Mankind, and there∣fore they were avail∣able only to him∣self. Any of his Po∣sterity upon the same Conditions shall assu∣redly obtain the like Pardon. The Conclu∣sion which he should prove is this, Absolute Non-election, or Nega∣tive Reprobation cannot stand with God's Mer∣cy. His Reasons are, Adam's Sin is the Sin of Man's Nature only; it is ours not by Gene∣ration, but by Imputa∣tion; it was pardoned in Adam. Were all these true, shew me any ne∣cessary Connexion be∣twixt the Premises and the Conclusion, and take the Cause. Dr. Da∣venant's Animadversions upon a Treatise enti∣tuled, God's Love to Mankind, p. 230, &c. (This Author's Senti∣ment of the Truth in the main part thereof, viz. God's dealings with Man by Imputa∣tion and Infusion, is that which renders him exceeding lovely; tho in the distinct hand∣ling of the same accor∣ding to the trial of this day, warding Ex∣pressions

could not be rationally expected from him sutable unto the same, unless he had seen it; the Mystery of Iniquity lying then in a more indigested and o∣pacous Embrio, especi∣ally amongst Prote∣stants, than now it does, in a more spiri∣tually refined, and re∣formed Monster there∣of, by sophisticated Reason, or Logick dia∣boliz'd.