Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…

2. Adam was but one single Natural person, nor did God (by error or arbitrary reputation) esteem or account him to be any other than he was. None of our persons were distinct persons in Adam, nor those persons that now they are: Therefore we were not so personally in him at his fall: But all our persons are in time and mediately by our Progenitors derived lineally from him (yet we deny not all Souls to be from God, and all Bodies an accretion of the common Elements); not as having been Persons existent in him, but being Persons caused remotely by him. Our present Persons were seminally or virtually in him; which is as much as to say, that not the Person, but the Semen Personae vel virtus causalis was in him: To be only Virtually, or Causally or Seminally in Adam, is in proper speech for that Person not really to have been in him: For Causa non est effectus, & Virtus generativa non est Persona generata: To be only Virtually in Adam is terminius diminuens as to personal inexistence, and denieth it. And as Dr. Twice hath oft well asserted, It is our natural relation to Adam supposed in Gods Law, which is the reason of our participation in his Sin, and not any Will or Judgment of God, without or beyond our Natural interest: For else it should be God most properly who by his arbitrary imputation should either make us Sinners, or repute us such when we are none. But yet when we become Persons, it is by Derivation from Adam, and so the effect can be no better than the cause, and as soon as we are Persons we are Guilty persons, having Guilt with personality from him, though we were not persons in him.

2. Adam was but one single Natural person, nor did God (by error or arbitrary reputation) esteem or account him to be any other than he was. None of our persons were distinct persons in Adam, nor those persons that now they are: Therefore we were not so personally in him at his fall: But all our persons are in time and mediately by our Progenitors derived lineally from him (yet we deny not all Souls to be from God, and all Bodies an accretion of the common Elements); not as having been Persons existent in him, but being Persons caused remotely by him. Our present Persons were seminally or virtually in him; which is as much as to say, that not the Person, but the Semen Personae vel virtus causalis was in him: To be only Virtually, or Causally or Seminally in Adam, is in proper speech for that Person not really to have been in him: For Causa non est effectus, & Virtus generativa non est Persona generata: To be only Virtually in Adam is terminius diminuens as to personal inexistence, and denyeth it. And as Dr. Twisse hath oft well asserted, It is our natural relation to Adam supposed in Gods Law, which is the reason of our participation in his Sin, and not any Will or Judgment of God, without or beyond our Natural interest: For else it should be God most properly who by his arbitrary imputation should either make us Sinners, or repute us such when we are none. But yet when we become Persons, it is by Derivation from Adam, and so the effect can be no better than the cause, and as soon as we are Persons we are Guilty persons, having Guilt with personality from him, though we were not persons in him.