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

1. One who is grossly ignorant and profane, wallowing in his sins in a most senseless and stupid manner, whose conscience are wholly dead within them; and such are carried out to sin with all impetuousness, having no check or remorse of conscience within them, of such the Apostle doth not speak. But

1. One who is grosly ignorant and prophane, wallowing in his sinnes in a most senslesse and stupid manner, whose conscience are wholly dead within them; and such are carried out to sinne with all impetuousness, having no check or remorse of conscience within them, of such the Apostle doth not speak. But

2. There are others who are in a Legal state, under the powerful convictions and operations of the Law, as Amyraldus expresseth it: Men who besides the mere knowledge of the Law have by the efficacy of Gods Spirit the convincing power of it so set home, that now their enlightened minds do greatly incline them to that which is good; but because their hearts are not sanctified, their affections are not mortified, therefore these lusts do hurry them away against those legal convictions that are upon them; or as Arminius expresseth it (in cap. 7. ad Rom.) not in a much different way, the Apostle speaketh of one, who is in some preparatory way to conversion. By the Law he is so far wrought upon, that he is afraid because of his sins, he crieth out of them, mourneth because of them, hath many wishes and desires: Oh that I could leave these lusts, I do not like or consent to such evil things that I do! Thus this person is supposed to have a servile fear, which is initial to the work of conversion. And this frame of spirit, although it be not regeneration, yet is to be reckoned among the good and spiritual gifts of God. This (say they) is the direct case of that person, who is here described by Paul; and it cannot be denied, but that many of the Ancients, and some later Writers have expounded it of a man under such legal convictions. And although the Pelagians boasted, That all Ecclesiastical Writers did interpret it of such a person, yet Austin opposeth them therein, instancing in some, who did understand it of a person regenerated. It is true, Austin himself, while younger, did expound it of an unregenerate person; I understood it (saith he) in that manner, or rather I did not understand it. But when he came to be elder and more exercised in the Scripture & other Writers, then he was compelled to yield to the truth, and to interpret it of a person regenerate; so that they calumniate Austin, who make him fly to this Interpretation out of the heat of his Disputations with Pelagians, taking this sense (though formerly he had done the other) as being more subservient to his present interest; for he attributeth his change of mind to the truth of God in other Scriptures, as also to the light he had from the tractates of other learned men.