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

Secondly, That one sin may suddenly deprive the subject of all Grace it hath, appeareth plainly in those Apostate Angels, Did not the first sin? which was in them a thought or an act of the will, (what it was it is disputed) Did not that immediately throw them out of their divine and blessed Habitations? And by that one and first sin, was not a glorious Angel made immediately a black Devil? It is true indeed, We cannot say the Devils have original sin, In this sense, As if because when the first Angel sinned, all the rest sinned in him, as if all their wills were bound up in him; No, They all stood upon their own bottom, they all sinned personally and voluntarily by their own actual transgression, though happily it might be by imitation and consent to him that first sinned; yet for all this, we see plainly, that in every Apostate Angel, one sin was enough to deprive him of all the good he had, and to fill him with such inveterate enmity to all goodness, That the Devil, though of such natural light in his conscience, yet is not able to do one good work, or have the least holy thought.

Secondly, That one sinne may suddenly deprive the subject of all Grace it hath, appeareth plainly in those Apostate Angels, Did not the first sinne? which was in them a thought or an act of the will, (what it was it is disputed) Did not that immediately throw them out of their divine and blessed Habitations? And by that one and first sinne, was not a glorious Angel made immediately a black Devil? It is true indeed, We cannot say the Devils have original sinne, In this sense, As if because when the first Angel sinned, all the rest sinned in him, as if all their wils were bound up in him; No, They all stood upon their own bottom, they all sinned personally and voluntarily by their own actual transgression, though happily it might be by imitation and consent to him that first sinned; yet for all this, we see plainly, that in every Apostate Angel, one sinne was enough to deprive him of all the good he had, and to fill him with such inveterate enmity to all goodness, That the Devil, though of such natural light in his conscience, yet is not able to do one good work, or have the least holy thought.

Thirdly, Sin doth expel grace, both formally, or (as some call it) efficiently and meritoriously also; it expels it formally, as darkness doth light, as diseases do sickness, or death, life, and meritoriously deserving, that God should deprive us of all holiness, and deny any further grace to us. The Remonstrants they call this folly and absurdity, to say, Sin expels grace actually and meritoriously also; For if it do actually, what need is there of meritoriously? If a man actually put out his eyes, it's absurd to say, he deserveth by that to have them put out; Or if a man wilfully throw away his garments, making himself naked, that he deserveth to be naked. But these instances do no ways enervate this Truth; for in that sin doth thus actually and meritoriously also deprive us of grace, we see the heinousness of it; one showeth, how sin is in it's own self like poison that presently kills, and the other, how odious it is to God, that if it did not of it self deprive us of spiritual life, yet it doth so provoke God, that because of it, God would not continue his daily grace to us. Besides, though sin doth formally expel the grace that is inherent in us, yet Gods grace without us, his preventing cooperating and continuing grace, without which we could not abide a moment in the state of grace, that it chaseth away meritoriously only; So that Adam in his first sin did both chase away the Image of God in him, and deserve, that God should withdraw his assisting and preserving grace, without which he could not have continued in his good estate; yea, sin doth so meritoriously expel grace, that could Adam by his own power, have immediately recovered himself, and instated himself into the condition he was in, yet he deserved for that former transgression, that God should have outed him of all: As they say, A man that hangeth himself, if it were possible