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

The second Proposition is, That the children even of holy and sanctified persons, who have their original sin in the guilt of it quite taken away, and in the filth and power of it much subdued, yet they beget children in original sin, and such children are by nature the children of wrath as well as of the most profligate and wicked men. It is usual with Papists and Lutherans to charge upon the Calvinists, that they deny original sin in part (at least) because they affirm, That the children of believers are holy; but herein they do either ignorantly or maliciously calumniate, for they say no more then what the Apostle speaketh in that famous place, 1 Cor. 7. 15. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy; on the sense of which place I shall not here enlarge, having insisted upon it before; The sum of which then delivered is, That they are called holy, because of that external Covenant, whereby God takes believers and their seed into his family, so that they have not that uncleanness upon them which the children of Heathens have, but have a right of admission into Church-Communion; so that this outward Covenant [holiness] may and doth consist with that inherent natural pollution that they bring with them into the world. And although parents be never so eminent in holiness, yet their children are full of sin, and so obnoxious unto the wrath of God; and the reason is, because they are fathers to their children, not as godly, but as men, and original sin is the consequent of mans nature, whereas the parents grace is a personal excellency, and so cannot be transmitted: Even as learned parents do not convey learning to their children, but they are born in ignorance as well as others; Those known similes of Augustine are full to this purpose, A Jew that was circumcised, be begat children not circumcised, but uncircumcised and the seed in the ground, though sown without husks, yet it produceth corn with husks; seeing then holiness is a personal qualification of the parent, and original sin the common consequent of mans nature inseparable from it, no wonder if parents, who are the children of God by grace, beget children of wrath by nature. Hence

The second Proposition is, That the children even of holy and sanctified persons, who have their original sinne in the guilt of it quite taken away, and in the filth and power of it much subdued, yet they beget children in original sinne, and such children are by nature the children of wrath as well as of the most profligate and wicked men. It is usuall with Papists and Lutherans to charge upon the Calvinists, that they deny original sinne in part (at least) because they affirm, That the children of believers are holy; but herein they do either ignorantly or maliciously calumniate, for they say no more then what the Apostle speaketh in that famous place,