A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

The sixth Proposition. Adam by his first transgression did deserve that all who should be of him, should be deprived of the Image of God, and the privation ⟨p. 202⟩of that doth necessarily infer the presence of all sin in a subject susceptible: As take away light from the air, and it must be dark; so that this Proposition answereth the whole difficulty: Adam deserved by his transgression, that all his posterity should become dead in sin; and as he had thus deserved it, so God had ordained it, and appointed it; The soul then of every one being made part of that man who is thus cursed in Adam, it becomes deprived of the Image of God, and so full of sin; So that although God create the soul naturally good, yet because part of man condemned by his sentence, he denieth it that original righteousness it once had; God doth not infuse any evil into the soul, nor is the Author of any sin therein, but as a just Judge denieth that righteousness, which otherwise the soul might have had: So that you must not look for an efficient cause of original sin in the soul, but a deficient, and a meritorious cause: So that the Sum is this, If you ask, How cometh the soul defiled, if created of God? I answer, The Meritorious cause is Adam's disobedience, by his transgression he demerited this for all that should come of him. And if you say, Who putteth the sin in? I answer, There is no efficient cause that putteth it in: It is enough that God doth justly refuse to give or continue his Image. And this being denied the soul, because a subject either of holiness or sin, when wanting one must necessarily fall into the other: Thus it is with the souls being polluted, as it is with night, there is no efficient cause of the night, only the withdrawing of the Sun necessarily maketh it: So God doth nothing positively to make the soul sinful, but according to his just appointment at first denieth that righteousness, which Adam wilfully put away from himself and his posterity: So that we may as easily conceive of every child's souls pollution by sin, as of Adam and Eve themselves. God made them righteous, but upon their transgression they became unclean and sinful: How was this? God in justice denied the continuance of this holiness to them any longer, so that they became sinful, not because God infused evil, but denied him that righteousness to them.

The sixth Proposition. Adam by his first transgression did deserve that all who should be of him, should be deprived of the Image of God, and the privation ⟨p. 202⟩