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

I shall consider the strength of their Objection, as it lieth in this, The same thing cannot be a sin and a punishment too. The Remonstrants affirm this, and Papists likewise, but with some explication. And

1. It is confessed, That there are some punishments of sin, which are not sin, as when God for Adam's disobedience hath made man obnoxious to miseries, to sickness and death; These are not sins; It comes from sin to have pain, and to die, but they are not sins; and the Reason is, Because these are malum naturale, not morale, they are a natural evil, not a moral.

1. It is confessed, That there are some punishments of sinne, which are not sinne, as when God for Adam's disobedience hath made man obnoxious to miseries, to sickness and death; These are not sinnes; It comes from sinne to have pain, and to die, but they are not sinnes; and the Reason is, Because these are malum naturale, not morale, they are a natural evil, not a moral.

In the second place, Austin saith, and he saith it truly from Scripture, That original inherent sin, which he calleth concupiscence, is both a sin, a punishment of sin, and a cause of sin; Even as blindness of mind, or hardness of heart, is both a sin, a punishment, and a cause of further sin, (Lib. 5. contra Juhan. cap. 3.) That it is a sin appeareth by the many Texts already brought: And Austin's Reason in that place is very cogent, Quia inest illi inobedientia contra dominatum mentis; There is in it a disobedience against the dominion of mind and spirit, therefore the Spirit lusteth against it. That it is a punishment is manifest by the event, for upon Adam's disobedience he lost Gods Image, and so hath blindness in mind, perverseness in his will, and a disorder over the whole man, in which dreadful and horrible estate we all succeed him: and this the Text in hand speaketh to. That it is the cause of sin is manifest,