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

SECT. III.

Lastly, They that hold Adam was at first created with a pronity to sin, and that it was natural in him to have the sensitive appetite rebel against the rational; and therefore original Righteousness was given as a bridle to curb and keep the inferior faculties in subordination to the superior. These (I say) do hold that Doctrine, which makes God to be the Author, if not of sin, yet of inclination to it. For, as the Socinians say, That death was natural to man in his first Creation, only sin made it necessary, end by way of a curse. So the Papists say, That even in Adam at his first Creation there would have been a rebellion between his appetite and reason, had not there been grace superadded to regulate it; For (say they) this is natural, and it abideth in all men still, and is not a sin. But we shall in time (God willing) show the falsehood of this, and prove the inclination of the sensitive appetite to any suitable object, as it was in Adam, was not irregular, but in us it is in all things excessive, we not being able to move regularly, because we have lost that inward strength we were created in. As you see in the Palsy member, that moveth very fast, not from strength, but from weakness, so is it with us now in all our motions to any object, but God. There is a paralitical affection, we cannot love or fear, but we do it too much. Now to say, it was thus in Adam, would be to dishonour God, and to make him the Author of that ataxy and confusion which is now in man.

LAstly, They that hold Adam was at first created with a pronity to sinne, and that it was natural in him to have the sensitive appetite rebel against the rational; and therefore original Righteousness was given as a bridle to curb and keep the inferiour faculties in subordination to the superiour. These (I say) do hold that Doctrine, which makes God to be the Author, if not of sinne, yet of inclination to it. For, as the Socinians say, That death was natural to man in his first Creation, only sinne made it necessary, end by way of a curse. So the Papists say, That even in Adam at his first Creation there would have been a rebellion between his appetite and reason, had not there been grace superadded to regulate it; For (say they) this is natural, and it abideth in all men still, and is not a sin. But we shall in time (God willing) shew the falshood of this, and prove the inclination of the sensitive appetite to any suitable object, as it was in Adam, was not irregular, but in us it is in all things excessive, we not being able to move regularly, because we have lost that inward strength we were created in. As you see in the Palsie member, that moveth very fast, not from strength, but from weakness, so is it with us now in all our motions to any object, but God. There is a paralitical affection, we cannot love or fear, but we do it too much. Now to say, it was thus in Adam, would be to dishonour God, and to make him the Author of that ataxy and confusion which is now in man.