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And now to SWRB's reading of the decades of Henry Bullinger, which we hope you find to be a great blessing, and which we pray draws you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. John 14 verse 6. I'm reading from page 358, the tenth sermon of the third decade, of sin and the kinds thereof, to wit of original and actual sin, and of sin against the Holy Ghost, and lastly of the most sure and just punishment of sins, his tenth sermon. We have lastly now to discourse of sin, which, as I told you, is to be referred to the treatise of the law, of which, that I may lawfully, religiously, rightly, and profitably speak to the edifying of you all, I shall desire you to make your humble prayers with me to God the Father, in the name of Christ his Son, our gracious Lord and Mediator. Sin is of most men taken for error. For that I mean whereby we do not only err from the thing which is true, right, just, and good, but do also follow and decline to that which is not. The Latins derived their word peccatum, sin, of pelicatus, whore-hunting, which is the fault of wedded people that are corrupted with the spirit of fornication, as when men prefer harlots before their lawful wives. And this definition verily doth wonderfully agree to this present treatise. For all we that do believe are by faith hand-fasted to our God as to a spouse and husband. If therefore we prefer other gods before him, or choose rather to serve them, If, I say, we let pass the true goods, indeed, to follow the shadow of goods, vain hopes, and the pernicious pleasures of this world, then do we sin indeed, and commit fornication against our spouse and husband. But the learned sort do for the most part put a difference betwixt peccatum and delectum, which both, in effect, do signify sins. but they call that delictum, when the thing is not done that should be done, and that they call peccatum, when that is done that should be left undone. St Jerome seemeth to have taken delictum for the first fall to sin. St. Augustine saith that peccatum is committed of him that sinneth wittingly, and delictum of him that sinneth of ignorance. I see that those words are in some places confounded, and that one is used for the other. In some places the error, or delictum, is used as the milder term, peccatum in a more grievous sense. and heinous crime, a mischief, a revolting, or wickedness, for the greatest of all. For St. Augustine saith, neither is every peccatum crimem, because every crimem is peccatum. Therefore we say that the life of a man living in this transhistory world may be found to be without that heinous offense, crimen, for which all the world does cry out upon and accuse him, but if we say we have nullum peccatum, no sin, as the apostle saith, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Among the Hebrews, sin is called by sundry names, which do import and signify overthoughtness, perverseness, a fault, an error, a revolting, infirmity, vice, ignorance, and transgression. For to transgress doth signify to depart from the truth, for our duty or office not to keep the right path, but to turn away from the present rule of the law of God. Now that rule, or law of God, is of the Hebrews called thora, that is to say a direction, or a leading by the hand, for it doth direct a man in the ways that are acceptable to the Lord. And therefore the Greeks call sin by the names of anomia and paranomia. Again, in the Hebrew tongue, sin is as much to say as a turning away from good to evil, also a revolting, as when thou drawest thy neck from out of the yoke of his power, to whom thou art a servant. Finally, it signifieth the crime or guilt whereby we endanger ourselves to the rod of punishment. Verily St. Augustine taketh much pains to find out a proper definition of sin. In his second book, Dei Consu Evangelistarum, he saith, sin is the transgression of the law. ad simplicianum lib. 1. Sin is an inordinateness or perverseness of man, that is, a turning from the more excellent Creator and turning to the inferior creatures. De fide contra manicheas cap. 8. He saith, What is it else to sin, but to err in the precepts of truth, or in the truth itself? Again, contra forstem mani coram, lib 22, cap 27, sin is a deed, a word, or a wish against the law of God. The same Augustine de duabus animabus contra mani caos, cap 11, saith, sin is a will to retain or obtain that which justice forbiddeth, and is not free to abstain. And in retract lib 1, cap 15, he saith, that will is a motion of the mind without compulsion, either not to lose or else to obtain some one thing or other. All which definitions as I do not utterly reject, so do I wish this to be considered and thought of with the rest. Sin is the natural corruption of mankind, and the action which arises of it contrary to the law of God, whose wrath, that is, both death and sundry punishments it bringeth upon us. Though hearest how well this definition doth consist upon his parts, though hearest in it of our natural corruption, in the meaning whereof appeareth how this definition doth not agree to the sin of our first parents, in whom there was no natural corruption, of which I mean to speak in place convenient. Thou hearest the action named, which arises of the natural corruption, is repugnant to the law of God. Thou hearest that sin doth bring upon us the wrath of God, that is, death, and sundry sorts of punishments, appointed by the mouth of God to plague us for our sins. Of which I will speak in order as they lie, so far forth as the Lord shall give me grace and ability. Now therefore it seemeth that this treatise may most aptly begun at the discussing of the original cause and beginning of sin. Some there be that derive the original cause of evil or sin from the influence of the planets, saying, I sinned because I was born under an unlucky planet. Other there are, which when they sin and are rebuked for it, do make this answer, not I, but the devil is in fault, that I have committed this grievous crime. And sometimes, laying aside all excuses, they do directly cast the blame upon God, and say, Why God would that it should be so? For if he would not had it so, I had not sinned. Another saith, Since God could have lettered it and would not, he is the cause and author of my sin. But it is no thing now that men do wet their blasphemous tongues against God, the maker and ruler of all things. For our first parents, when they had sinned and were accused of it by God himself, found a shift for to translate the sin which they had committed on themselves to other. and would not confess the truth as it was in very deed. Such is the abominable wickedness of man. For Adam, as it were, answering God overthoughtly, cast as the fault of his offence, not only upon his wife which God had coupled with him, but also upon God himself. The woman, saith he, whom thou gavest me to be with me, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And if he should have said, if thou hadst not given me the woman, I had not sinned, but the Lord coupled him to a wife, not to the end that she should be in occasion of evil, but that the man might be in the better case and condition. Again the woman doth simply impute the cause of that evil unto the devil, saying, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Lo, these are most corrupt, false, wicked, and detestable opinions touching the original cause of sin, wherewith the justice and truth of God is mightily offended. Neither is the nature of man the cause of sin. For God, which created all things, did also create the nature of man, and made it good, even as all things else which he created were also good. Therefore the nature of man was good. for it is an accidental quality that happened to man either in or immediately after his fall, and not a substantial property to have his nature so spotted with corruption as now it is. Now we, being born in sin of sinful progenitors, have sinned by descent as our natural property. For St. Augustine writing, De fide contra Manichaos, cap 9, saith, and if we say that any men are evil by nature, we mean that they are so because of the original descent of our first parent's sin wherein we mortal men are wholly born. But this now requires a more exact and ample declaration. That the devil alone is not the author of sin, so that when we sin the blame thereof should rebound to him, and we that sinned escape without fault, this doth greatly argue, because it is in his power to egg and persuade, but not to enforce a man to do evil. For God by his power restraineth the devil from being able to do the thing that he would do. He can do no more than God permitteth him to do. For if he had no power over an herd of filthy swine, how much less authority hath he over the excellent souls of God's most excellent creatures. He hath, I confess, great subtleties, and more than rhetorical force, wherewith to persuade us. But God is stronger, and never ceases to prompt good and wholesome counsels into the souls of his faithful servants. Neither doth he permit more to Satan than his for our commodities. as is to be seen in the example of that holy man, the patient Job, and also in the example of Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, and in his words saying, God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. They, therefore, are vainly seduced, which cast the fault of their sin upon the devil's shoulders. To proceed, If there are demanders of them which lay the blame of their sin upon their evil destiny, what destiny is? They will answer, either that it is a course knit together by eternity and linked to itself, as it were a certain chain and continual row of councils and works, necessarily following one upon another's neck, according to the disposition and ordinance of God, or else that it is the evil stars or planets. Now if thou demand'st again, O may the stars, they have none other answer but God. It followeth therefore, consequently, that they enforce the cause of their sin upon God himself. All the ancient and best philosophers did never pretend or allege destiny, much less such Christians as did freely confess the mighty power of their God and Maker. And even among our men, I mean among them that would seem to be Christians, they which stood in the opinion of destiny and constellations, were such kinder fellows as wise men would be ashamed to follow them as authors. Bardessinius imputed to destiny the conversations of mortal men. And Priscillianus, who were condemned in the first council held at Toledo, thought and that men is tied to fatal stars, and hath his body compact according to the twelve signs in heaven, placing Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, and so consequently to every sign he swept several limbs. St. Augustine in Opus Culo 83. Questionum, Quest 45. Computing soundly the destinies of planets, among other his reasons, he saith, the conceiving of twins in the mother's womb, because it is made in one and the same act, as the physicians testify, whose discipline is far more certain and manifest than that of the astrologers, does happen in so small a moment of time that there is not so much time as two minutes of a minute betwixt the conceiving of the one and the other. How therefore cometh it that in twins of one burden there is so great a diversity of deeds, wills, and chances, considering they of necessity must needs have one and the same planet in their conception, and that the mathematicals do give the constellation of them both as it were but of one man? To these words of St. Augustine great light may be added, if you are next to them and examine narrowly the example of Esau and Jacob's birth and sundry dispositions. The same Augustine, writing de Boniface against two epistles of the Pelagians, Lib. 2, cap. 6, saith, They which affirm that destiny doth rule, will have not only our deed and events, but also our very wills, to depend upon the placing of the stars at the time wherein every man is either conceived or born. which placing they are want to call constellations. But the grace of God doth not only go above all stars and heavens, but also above the very angels themselves. Moreover, these disputers for destiny do attribute to destiny both the good and evil that happen to men. But God, in the evils that fall upon men, doth duly and worthily recompense them for their ill-deeds, but the good which they have he doth bestow upon them, not for their merits, but of his own favor and merciful goodness through grace, and cannot be looked for of duty, laying both good and evil upon as men, not through the temporal course of planets, but by the deed and eternal counsel of his severity and goodness. So then we see that neither the falling out of good or evil hath any relation unto the planets, Therefore this place may be concluded with the words of the Lord in the Prophet Jeremy, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not learn after the manner of the heathen, and ye shall not be afraid for the tokens of heaven, for the heathen are afraid of such. Yea, all the observations of the Gentiles are vanity, for the planets have no force to do either good or evil, and therefore the blame of sins is not to be imputed thereunto. I have now to prove unto you that God is not the cause of sin or the author of evil. God, say they, would have it so, for if he would not have it so, I had not sinned, for who may resist his power? Again, since he could have letted it and would not, he is the author of my sin and wickedness, as though we knew not the crafty quarrels and subtle shifts of mortal men. Who, I pray you, knoweth not that God does not deal with us by His absolute power, but by an appointed law and ordinance, I mean by commodious means, and a probable order? God could, I know, by His absolute power keep off all evil, but yet He neither can nor will either corrupt, or mar his creature, and excellent order. He dealeth with us men, therefore, after the manner of men he appointeth us laws, and layeth before us rewards and punishments. He commandeth to embrace the good, and eschew the evil. To the performing that we are of, he doth neither deny us his grace, without which we can do nothing, neither doth he despise our diligent good will, and earns travail. Herein, if man be slack, the negligence and fault is imputed to man himself, and not to God, although he could have kept off the sin, and did not. For it was not his duty to keep it off, lest peradventure he should disturb the order and destroy the work which he himself had made and ordained. Therefore God is not the author of sin or naughtiness. Touching which matter, I will first add some testimonies of the Holy Scripture, then answer to sundry objections of the adversaries of this doctrine, and lastly declare the original cause or headspring of sin and wickedness. The testimonies which teach that God is not the author of sin or naughtiness are many in number, but among the rest this is an argument of greatest force and probability, because God is said to be good naturally, and that all which he created were made good in their creation. Whereupon it is that Solomon saith, God hath not made death, Neither hath he delight in the destruction of the living, for he created all things, that they might have their being, and the beginnings of the world were healthful. And there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of hell upon the earth. For righteousness is immortal, but unrighteousness bringeth death. And the ungodly call it to them both with words and works, and thereby come to naught. And so forth as it is to be seen in the first chapter of the Book of Wisdom, which words do passingly agree with the first chapter of that most excellent prophet Moses. In the fifth psalm, David saith, Thou art the God that hath no pleasure in wickedness, neither shall any evil dwell with thee. The unjust shall not stand in thy sight, for thou hatest all them that work iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing. The Lord doth abhor both the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Lo, thou canst devise nothing more contrary to the nature of God than sin and naughtiness, as thou mayest more at large perceive in the thirty-fourth chapter of the book of Job. The wise man saith, God created man good, But they sought out many inventions of their own. And therefore the apostle Paul derives sin, damnation, and death not from God, but from Adam. And from God he fetches grace, forgiveness, and life through the mediator, Jesus Christ. That place of Paul is far more manifest than that it needeth any large exposition. Let it not only be considered and diligently waived of the readers and hearers, whom I would wish always to bear in mouth and mind the very words and meaning of this notable sentence, even as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so forth as follows. The same apostle, in the seventh to the Romans, doth evidently declare that the law is holy, the commandment good and just. And thereby he doth insinuate that in God, or in his will, there is not, and in his law, which is the will of God, there springeth not any spot or blur of sin or naughtiness. In our flesh, saith he, the evil lurketh, and out of us iniquity ariseth. I know, saith he, that in me, that is, in my flesh, there is no good. In that chapter there are many sentences to be found which do wonderfully confirm this argument. Again, in the third to the Romans, the same apostle saith, If our unrighteousness setteth forth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, which taketh vengeance? I speak after the manner of men, that is, I use the words of wicked people. God forbid! For how, then, shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath abounded through my lie unto His glory, Why am I as yet judged as a sinner? etc. If God were the author of sin and all evil, and that he would have the wicked to be such as in very deed they are, then why, I pray you, should he judge or punish them as transgressors, since they by sinning fulfilled his will? To this place also doth belong the testimony of the blessed evangelist and apostle John. in his canonical epistle, where he saith, If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, as the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that fulfilleth the will of the Father abideth forever. Lo, here God is utterly free from evil. Evil, saith he, is not of the Father, but of the world. And he which doeth the will of the Father doeth not what the world will, but what God will. Therefore these two, good and evil, sin and the will of God, are directly opposed and repugnant the one against the other. These testimonies, though few in number, are, notwithstanding, in my judgment, sufficiently significant and able to persuade a godly disposed hearer. Now, upon this, we do first infer a conclusion, and boldly warrant that point of Catholic doctrine which hath ever since the apostles' time always being defended with much diligence against the unpure philosophy of some, although yet I do not utterly condemn all the parts of philosophy, knowing very well that some parts thereof are very necessary and profitable to the zealous lovers of God and godliness. But God is not the author of evil or cause of sin. Then out of the same testimonies we gather that the original cause of sin or evil is derived of man himself, and his suggester and provoker, the devil. So yet that we say that the devil, being first himself corrupted, did corrupt man, being nevertheless not able of himself to have done anything, but not man of his own accord consented unto evil. had not man of his own accord consented unto evil. And here we must before our eyes the fall of our first Adam, that by the consideration thereof we may be the better able to judge of the original cause of sin and iniquity. God created Adam, the first father of us all, according to his own similitude and likeness. That is to say, he made him good, most pure, most holy, most just, and immortal, and adorned him with every excellent gift and faculty, so that there was nothing wanting to him in God which was available to perfect felicity. Touching this similitude, or likeness to God, I shall take occasion upon the words of Paul to speak hereafter. So then he was endued with a very divine, pure, and sharp understanding. His will was free, without constraint, and absolutely holy. He had power to do either good or evil. Moreover, God gave him a law, which might instruct him what to do and what to leave undone. For God, in saying, thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, did simply require at his hands faith and obedience, and that he should wholly depend upon God, all which he had to do, not by compulsion or necessity, but of his own accord and free good will. For very truly and wholly writ the wise man in the fifteenth of Ecclesiasticus, saying, God made man in the beginning, and left him in the hand of his counsel. He gave him his commandments and precepts. If thou wilt, thou shalt keep my commandments, and they shall preserve thee. Therefore when the serpent tempted the mind of man, and did persuade him to taste of the forbidden tree, man knew well enough that what peril was laid before him, and how the serpent's counsel was flatly repugnant to the Lord's commandment. In the meantime, neither did God compel him, nor Satan in the serpent enforce him to sin, while he resisted and did withstand him. For God had said, Ye shall not eat of that tree, nor touch it, for if ye do, ye shall die for it. Therefore he was at his own free choice, and in the hand of his own counsel, neither to or not to eat. Yea, God declared his mind unto him in giving precise commandment that he should not eat. And to the commandment he annexed the danger of the breach thereof, withdrawing him thereby from eating of the fruit, and saying, Lest perhaps thou die. And as Satan could not, so also he did not, show any violence, but used such improbable word to counsel him as he could, and did indeed at length persuade him. For when the woman's will gave ear to the word of the devil, her mind departed from the word of God, whereby she rejected the good law of God, did of her own purpose will commit that sin, and drew her husband, that yielded of his own accord, into the fellowship of the same offence. as a scripture doth most significantly express in these words. And the woman, seeing that the tree was good to eat of, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband with her, and he did eat also. Lo, here thou hast the beginning of evil, the thou hast heard what it was that moved the mind or will of man unto that evil, to wit, the false persuasion of the devil, or his subtle praise of the fruit of the tree, and so consequently a mere lie, and the pleasant show of the delicate tree. But that which our first parents did, they did of their own accord and free good-will, being led by hope to obtain a more excellent life and profounder wisdom, which the seducer had falsely promised them. We do, therefore, conclude that sin doth spring not of God, which hateth and doth prohibit all evil, but of the devil. The free election of our grandparents and their corrupted will, which was depraved by the devil's lie, and the false show of fame good, so then the devil, and the yielding or corrupted mind of man are the very causes of sin and naughtiness. To proceed now, this evil doth by descent flow from our first parents into all their posterity, so that at this day sin doth not spring from elsewhere, but of ourselves, that is to say, of our corrupt judgment, depraved will, and the suggestion of the devil. For the root of evil is yet remaining in our flesh by reason of that first corruption, which root bringeth forth a corrupt branch in nature like unto itself. which branch Satan even now, as he hath done always, doth by his slights, subtleties, and lies, cherish, tend, and tender, as an imp of his own planting. And yet notwithstanding, he laboureth in vain, unless we yield ourselves to his hands to be framed as he listeth. that there may herein appear less doubt or darkness. I will, for confirmation's sake, add two most evident testimonies, the one out of the writings of the evangelists, and the other out of the doctrine of the apostles. The Lord in the gospel saith, The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, because he is a liar, and the father of lies. But by these words of the Lord we gather that evil is to be referred to the devil, who, being created in truth and goodness, did not stand fast in truth and goodness, but degenerated from his nature, wherein he was made good, and fell into another nature corrupt and wicked, and hath out of himself dispersed all evil, as it appeared by the history of our first parents into the world, to wit, murder and lies, under which too are comprehended all other evils, of which he has expressly said to be the father, that is the cause, the author, the wellspring, and beginning, not because he made such and one of God, but because he stood not fast in the truth. To them, therefore, that do demand of what beginning Satan came, and whether God made him or no, our answer is that God indeed made all the angels, and those also which afterward did become reprobates and wicked devils. But we do not therefore say that the cause of evil doth rebound to God, for we know that God in the beginning made all the angels good, for all things which he made were good. Furthermore, it is said that the devil stood not in the truth, that is, that he revolted from the truth, from which he could not have revolted if he had never stood in it. Therefore God, in the beginning, did place all his angels in the truth. He required of them truth, faith, or fidelity, and the duty that they ought him, which they were able to have done if they themselves would, But they did disloyally fall from their allegiance, and sinned, as the apostle Peter testifieth, against the Lord. And therefore the fault of their falsehood, and of all their naughtiness, was not in God, but in rebellious and revolting angel. For since the time of his fall there is no truth, no fidelity, no integrity, no fear of God, no light or goodness to be found in him. Therefore truly saith John in the canonical epistle, He that commiteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning, for he is the first sinner, and the beginning of sin. To this also may this note be added, that of Peter and John the devil is said to sin, for sin is repugnant to the will of God. Therefore God would not have had him perish, whereupon since he perished, it followeth that he perished not by the fault of God, but by his own fault. Let us now hear the other testimony concerning the corrupt will of man, which is in very deed the cause of sin. St. Paul the Apostle saith, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away and enticed of his own concupiscence. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. In these words St. James, I hope, doth evidently enough make God to be free from all fault of sin, and doth derive it of us ourselves, showing by the way the beginning and proceeding of sin. Neither doth James in this place gainsay the place in Genesis, where Moses said, God tempted Abraham. For in Moses to tempt doth signify to make a trial or a proof. But in this argument of ours it signifieth to stir or draw to evil, and so to corrupt us. Therefore, as he cannot, saith he, be tempted of evil, That is to say, as God is by nature good and uncorrupt, so doth he not corrupt, deprave, or defile any man with evil, for that is contrary to the nature of God. From whence, then, hath sin his beginning? The Holy Apostle Antares saying, yea, every man is tempted, corrupted, and drawn into evil, while he is withdrawn and enticed with his own concupiscence. though here sin taketh beginning of our concupiscence, and is accomplished and finished by our own work and labour. Note here, by the way, what a weight and emphasis every one of the apostles' words doth carry with it. For first he maketh concupiscence our own, or proper to us all, Even as the Lord before did say of Satan, When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own. Now because concupiscence is our own, therefore sin is our own also. For concupiscence doth withdraw us from that that is true, just and good, to that which is false, unjust, and evil. The same concupiscence enticeth us. that is, making a show of false hope, it doth deceive us, as foul as I want with meat to entice birds into their nets, which, when they have deceived them, they catch up and kill. What, I pray you, could be spoken more plainly? We are by our own concupiscence cast into evil. This concupiscence draweth us from God, it doth entice and utterly deceive us. and then having laid the foundation of sin, and opened the well-spring from whence it floweth, he doth verily properly allude, and by an allegory show us the genealogy that is the beginning and proceeding of sin. That concupiscence, saith he, which is proper unto us all, doth, as it were, a matrix, conceive sin in us. and immediately after doth bring it forth to wit, when our lust birtheth out into the act, when we do greedily prosecute that which we lost it after, and being once obtained, we do enjoy it against the law of God, upon the neck whereof death does follow without intermission, for the reward of sin is death. I have, I trust, by these evident proofs of Scripture, plainly declared that God is not the cause of evil, but our corruptible will or concupiscence, and the devil which stirreth, provoketh, and inflameth our depraved nature to sin and wickedness, as he which is the tempter and utter enemy to mankind and his salvation. It would not be amiss here to hear the objections of certain cavaliers against this doctrine, and to learn how to answer them according to the truth. Some there are which, when they see that we derive sin not of the nature of God, but of the corruptible will of man and false suggestion of the devil, do presently object that God created Adam, and so consequently created sin in Adam. To this we answer, that sin is the corruption of the good nature made by God, and not a creature created by God, either in or with man. God created man good, but man, being left to his own counsel, did through the persuasion of Satan, by his own action and depraved will, corrupt the goodness that God created in him, so now that sin is proper to man. I mean man's corrupt action against the law of God, and not a creature created in him of God. To this they reply, but the will and ability that was in Adam, was it from elsewhere than from God himself? Undoubtedly no, it was from God. Therefore say they, sin is of God. I deny it, for God gave not to Adam will and power of working, to the end that he should work evil. For by express commandment he forbade him to do wickedness. Therefore Adam himself did naughtily apply the will and power which he received of God to using them untowardly. The prodigal son received money at his father's hand, whose meaning was not that he should waste it prodigally with right as living, but that he might have whereupon to live and supply the want of his necessities. Wherefore, when he had lavishly lashed it out, and utterly undone himself, the fault was in himself for abusing it, and not in his father for giving it unto him. Furthermore, to have the power to do good and evil, as Adam had of God, is of itself a thing without fault, even as also to have a poison, to bear a weapon, or wear a sword, is a thing that no man can worthily blame. They have in them a force to do good or harm. They are not naught unless they be abused. And he that giveth thee them doth leave to thee the use thereof. If he be a just man, he putteth them into thy hand not to abuse, but to use as equity and right requireth. Wherefore, if thou abusest them, the fault is imputed to thyself, and not to him that gave thee them. Now since God, which gave Adam that will and power, is of himself most absolutely just, it followeth consequently that he gave them to Adam not to do evil, but good. Why then is the most just God blamed in such a case as sinful man is without all blame in? We do therefore conclude Because affection in Adam, being moved by sense and egged on by the serpent, did persuade him to eat of the forbidden fruit, when nevertheless his understanding did yet hold the word of God which forbade him to eat, and that his will was at free choice and liberty to incline to whether part it pleased him, he did notwithstanding will and choose that which God had forbidden him, We do therefore, I say, conclude that sin is properly to be imputed to man, which willingly transgressed, and not to God, which charged him that he should not sin. Here again, the adversaries ask this question. Why God did create man so frail? that he of his own will might incline to evil? Why did he not rather confirm in him the goodness and perfect soundness of nature, that he could not have fallen or sinned? To this the scripture answers, saying, What art thou that disputest with God? Woe to him that striveth with his Maker! Woe to him that saith to the Father, Why begottest thou? and to the Mother, Why broughtest thou forth? Unless God had made man fallible, there had been no praise of his works or virtue. For he could neither have willed nor choosed, but of necessity have been good. What if man ought altogether to be made fallible? For so did the counsel of God require him to be. God giveth not his own glory to any creature. Adam was a man, and not a god. But to be good of necessity is the proper glory of God, and none but God. And as God is bountiful and liberal, so also he is just. He doth good to men. But will therewithal that men acknowledge him and his benefits, and that they obey him, and be thankful for the same. He had bestowed innumerable benefits upon Adam. There lacked nothing, therefore, but to give him an occasion to declare and show his thankfulness and obedience to his good God and benefactor, which occasion he offered him by the making of that law or giving his commandment. We see, therefore, that God ordained not that law to be a stumbling block in Adam's way, but rather to be a staff to stay him from falling, for in the law he declareth what he would have him to do. He showeth that he wishes not the death or destruction of Adam. He teacheth him what to do, that he may escape death, and live in felicity and perfect happiness. For which cause also he provided that the law should be a plain and easy commandment, Of the tree and the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat, saith the Lord. For if thou doest, thou shalt die the death. But of any other tree in the garden thou shalt eat. What else was this? Then, as if he should have said, Thou shalt in all things have an eye to me. Thou shalt stick to me, obey me, be subject unto me, and serve me. Neither shalt thou from elsewhere fetch the forms of good and evil than of me. and in so doing thou shalt show thyself obedient and thankful unto me thy maker. Did God in this desire any just thing, or more than he should at the hands of Adam? He showed him the tree as a sacrament or sign of that which he enjoined him by the giving of the law, to wit that the tree might be a token to put him in memory that he might they ought to obey the Lord alone as a wise, bountiful, excellent, and greatest God and Maker. And what difficulty, I pray you, or darkness was there herein? St. Augustine is of the same opinion with us, who in his book De Natura Boni Adversus Manicheas, cap. 35, saith, he did therefore forbid it, that he might show that the nature of the reasonable soul ought not to be not in man's own power, but in subjection unto God, and that by obedience it keepeth the order of her salvation, which by disobedience it doth corrupt and mar. And hereupon it cometh, that he called a tree, which he forbade, by the name of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because Adam if he toucheth it against the Lord's commandment, should by trial feel the punishment of his sin, and by that means know what difference there was betwixt the good that followeth obedience, and the evil which ensueth the sin of disobedience. How therefore, when the serpent was crept in, and began to tell man of other forms of good and evil directly contrary to the law of God, And that man had once received them as things both true and credible, he did disloyally revolt from God, and by his own fault, through disobedience, he wrought his own destruction. Therefore God did always deal justly with him. A man contrarily dealt too unjustly, and was utterly unthankful, howsoever men will go about to cloak or not to hear of his unthankful stubbornness. But whereas we say that man was made fallible, we will not have it to be so understood that any man should think that there was in Adam any one jot or prick of infirmity before his fall. For as he was in all points most absolutely perfect, So was he in no point created so frail that he should sin or perish by death. For God, which is one in substance and three in person, saith, Let us make man in our image, after our own likeness. Note here that Zolem doth signify the picture or counterfeit of another thing, and that Demuth importeth the very pattern whereby any picture is drawn or image portrayed. Therefore, in God is the example or pattern, to the resemblance whereof there was a picture or similitude framed. But that representing likeness cannot be this body of ours, for God is a spirit. in no point like to the nature of dust and ashes. We must of necessity, therefore, resemble the image of God to spiritual things as to immortality, truth, justice, and holiness. For so hath the apostle Paul taught us, where he saith, Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on that new man which after God is shapen in righteousness and holiness of truth. Wherefore there was no want in our grandfather Adam of anything that was available to absolute perfectness, so that even a blind man may perceive that man was not created to death and destruction, but unto life, felicity, and absolute blessedness. But, say they, God did foreknow the fallen man, which if he would, he could have withstood. Now since it could, and would not, God is to be blamed because Adam sinned. It is a goodly matter indeed, when all fear of God being laid aside, men will at their pleasure fall flatly unrailing against the majesty of God Almighty. I answered in the beginning of this discourse to this objection, and yet this I add here moreover, that upon God's poor knowledge there followeth no necessity so that Adam did of necessity sin because God did foreknow, and that he would sin. A prudent father did foresee, by some untoward tokens, that his son will one day come in an ill ending. Neither is he deceived in his foresight, for he is slain, been taken in adultery. For he is not therefore slain, because his father foresaw that he would be slain, but because he was an adulterer. And therefore when St. Ambrose, or whosoever is that was author of the second book, De Gentium Vecationo Ne Cap For, speaking on the murder which Cain committeth, saith, God verily did foreknow to what end the fury of the madman would come. And yet, because God's foreknowledge could not be deceived, it doth not thereupon follow that necessity of sinning did urge the crime upon him. And St. Augustine de Libero arbitrio, lib. 13, cap. 4, saith, As thou by thy memory dost not compel those things to be done that are good and past, so God by his foreknowledge doth not compel those things to be done which are to come. And as thou rememberest some things that thou hast done, and yet hast not done all things which thou rememberest, so God foreknoweth all things which he doth, and yet doth not all which he foreknoweth. But God is a just revenger of that whereof he has no evil author, and so forth. Like unto this is another objection, which they say, God did before all beginnings determined with himself to deliver mankind from bondage. Therefore it could not otherwise be, but that we should be tangled in bondage. Therefore it behoved us to be drowned in sin, that by that means the glory of God might shine more clearly, as the apostle said, where sin was plenteous, there was grace more plenteous. But it is a marvel that these cavaliers do not better consider that God of himself, without us, is sufficient to himself, unto absolute blessedness and most perfect felicity, and that his glory could, as it doth, of itself reach above all heavens, although there had never been any creature brought into light. Is not God with that beginning? But we his creatures had a beginning. God is glorious from before all beginnings. Therefore he is glorious without us. and his glory would be as great as it is, though we were not. But what dullard is so foolish as to think that that eternal light of God does draw any brightness of glory at our darkness or out of the stinking dungeon of our sin and wickedness? Should God's glory be no glory if it were not for our sins? The wise man in Ecclesiasticus saith, Say not, though, it is the Lord's fault that I have sinned. for thou shalt not do the thing that God hateth. Say not, though, he hath caused me to do wrong, for he hath no need of the sinner, or for the wicked are not needful unto him. God hateth all abomination of error, and they that worship God will love none other than such. Why therefore do we not change our manner of reasoning? And so consider of the matter as it is in very deed. God of His eternal goodness and liberality, whereby He wishes Himself to be parted among us to our felicity, did from everlasting determine to create man in His own similitude and likeness. But for because He did foresee that He would fall headlong into a filthy and miserable bondage, He did therefore by the same His grace and goodness ordain a deliverer to bring us out of to the end that so he might communicate himself unto us, that we might praise his gracious favour, and render thanks to his fatherly goodness. And so whatever we men have sinned, and turned to our own destruction, that same doth God convert again to our commodity and salvation, even as he is read to have done in the case of Joseph and his brethren, which is, as it were, a certain type of spiritual things and cases of salvation. And we must wholly endeavor ourselves to do what we may in reasoning of this argument, so to turn it, that all glory may be given to God alone, and to us nothing else but silence in the sight of God. Now, last of all, there are yet some places of scripture we must, by the way, be run through and expounded. The apostle verily saith, God gave them up to a reprobate sense. But this kind of giving over is, as Augustine saith also, a work of judgment and justice. For they were worthy to be given up unto a reprobate sense. The cause is prefixed in the words of the apostle. For God had made himself manifest unto them, but they were not only unthankful towards him, but waxed wise also in their own conceits, and went about to obtrude unto him I what not, what manner of religion and worship. Therefore that they might be proof see, that they were fools and ungodly, God gave them up unto filthy lusts. In like manner King Amazius would not give ear and hearken to the Lord, because God had determined to punish his iniquities, as is read in the fourth book of Kings, the fourteenth chapter, and second Paralipopon, twenty-fifth chapter. Likewise did the Lord put the spirit of error into the mouths of the false prophets, and they seduced Egypt, Isaiah 19. So also did a seducing spirit go out from the Lord of judgment, and was a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets, as is seen in the last chapter of the third book of Kings. Now the Lord doth all these things with just and holy judgment. Again God is said to blind men's eyes. so often as he doth revoke or take away the contemned light of his truth and sincerity, leaving them that delight in darkness, to walk and stick in that darkness still. For then the Lord permitteth his words to be preached to the unthankful and ungodly receivers, unto their judgment or condemnation. For so verily doth the evangelical and apostolic doctrine teach us to think. This, saith the Lord, is condemnation, or this is judgment, that the Son of God, the very true Light, came into the world, and the world loved darkness more than light. And Paul said, If yet the gospel be hid, it is hid in them that perish, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the senses of the unbelievers. In the same sense, God is said to harden man. For when the Lord calledeth man, and he resisteth, making himself unworthy of the kingdom of heaven, he doth then permit him unto himself. That is, he leaveth man unto his own corrupt nature, according unto which the heart of man is stony, which is mollified and made tractable by the only grace of God. Therefore the withdrawing of God's grace is the hardening of man's heart. And when we are left unto ourselves, then are we hardened. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, did by his murdering of the Israelitish infants, by his tyranny, and many other vices, harmfully committed against the law of nature, offend the eyes of God, most just and heavenly majesty. Therefore it is no marvel that he hardened his heart. But if any man will not admit or receive this exposition, yet can he not deny that God in the Scriptures doth use our kinds of phrases and manner of speeches? Now we are wont to say this Father doth, by too much cockering or over-gentling, dealing mar or harden his son, he maketh him stubborn and stiff-necked, and yet the Father did not tender him to destroy, but to save him. The son, indeed, by the abuse of his father's clemency, doth both destroy and harden himself. Therefore, whereas the son is hardened, that cometh by his own, and not his father's fault, although the father bear the name to have hardened him, or made him past grace. And verily, if thou dost deliberately consider the history of Pharaoh, thou shalt oftener than once find this sentence repeated there, And God hardened Pharaoh's heart. namely, when some benefit or delivery from evil was wrought before, as though the scripture should have said, by this benefit of delivering him from evil, did God harden the heart of Pharaoh, while he abused the goodness of God, and supposed that all things should be afterwards out of peril and danger, because God had taken away this present punishment, and did begin to do him good. And yet I confess that God, before he had benefited, or laid any punishments upon Egypt, did immediately upon the calling of Moses say, I know that the king of Egypt will not let you depart. And again, see that thou do all these signs and wonders which I have put in thy hand before Pharaoh. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall not let the people go. But these sayings do not tend hereunto, that we should make God the author of all Pharaoh's falsehood, rebellion, and stubborn dealing against the Lord. But rather they were spoken to the comfort and confirmation of Moses, who is therefore so premonished that, when he dealeth earnestly with the king, and yet cannot obtain his suit, he should notwithstanding know that he had God's business in hand, and that God, by his long sufferance, is the cause of that delay. when, as notwithstanding at the last, he would temper all things to his own honour and glory. The case, by a similitude, is all one, as if a householder should send his servant to his debtors, saying, Go thy way, and demand my debts, but yet I know that thou shalt receive none of them, for I, by my sufferance and gentle dealing, will cause them to be the slacker to pay it. but yet do thou thy duty, and I, in the meantime, will see what is needful to be done. To this may be added that even in those very chapters where it is so often said, God hardened Pharaoh's heart, this also is afterward annexed, which layeth the hardening of Pharaoh's heart upon Pharaoh's own head. saying, He hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them. In the ninth of Exodus, when Pharaoh was well whipped, he crieth, I have now sinned, the Lord is just, but I and my people are unjust and wicked. And immediately after again, but when Pharaoh saw that it ceased raining, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, and it was hardened. So then these and such like places must be conferred with these words, I have hardened Pharaoh's heart, and out of them must be gathered a godly sense, such a sense, I mean, as maketh not God the author of evil. Stillwater's Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. It's your worldwide online Reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, mp3s, and videos. 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