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

To answer this:¹ First, It is not my purpose at this time to enter into that great Debate, Whether the sins of parents are punished in their children? And it so, How it stands with the Justice of God? It is plain, That in the second Commandment it is said, That God being a jealous God, because of Idolatry, he will visit the sins of such persons, to the third and fourth generation. The same likewise is attributed unto God, Exod. 34. 7. when his glorious Properties are described, experience also in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as also in the drowning of the world, doth abundantly testify this; For no doubt there was in those places, as God said of Nineveh, many little ones, that did not know the right hand from the left, and so could not have any consent to the actual iniquities of their Parents. To reconcile therefore that place of Ezek. 18. where God saith, The child shall not bear the iniquity of his Father, with those former places, hath exercised the thoughts of the most learned men variously, endeavouring to untie that knot. Though I find some of late, understanding that of Ezekiel, only for that particular occasion, as it did concern the Jews, in their particular judgment of Captivity, who complained that for their fathers iniquities they were transported into a strange Land; So that they think it not to be extended universally, but limited to that people only, and at that time, and that alone to that Land of Israel, because they were driven from their own Country: But whether this Interpretation will abide firm or no, it is certain that the Text doth not militate against our cause in hand. For

To answer this:¹ First, It is not my purpose at this time to enter into that great Debate, Whether the sins of parents are punished in their children? And it so, How it stands with the Justice of God? It is plain, That in the second Commandment it is said, That God being a jealous God, because of Idolatry, he will visit the sins of such persons, to the third and fourth generation. The same likewise is attributed unto God, Exod. 34. 7. when his glorious Properties are described, experience also in the destruction of Sedom and Gomorrah, as also in the drowning of the world, doth abundantly testifie this; For no doubt there was in those places, as God said of Ninevch, many little ones, that did not know the right hand from the left, and so could not have any consent to the actual iniquities of their Parents. To reconcile therefore that place of